Poem
Jen Hadfield
THE PLINKY-BOAT
DE TINKELBOOT
Iets in de buurt van het waarachtigenachtdonker. De kinderen
spelen op de Tinkelboot –
een xylofoon, gemaakt van
van een oude sloep –
gebouwd op buigzaamheid op ruwe
zee, je kunt zien dat hij zich moeiteloos,
haast zonder blozen, van boot tot
instrument heeft ontpopt
en nu stromen van die
hese nacht-
tonen uitzweet. Want de koperen buizen
zijn op de breedte gesneden, precies zo
dat de dekbalk
de sotto voce vormt en twee rijen
van stijgende hoogte naar
de flageolet van elk
driehoekspunt lopen – waar
de planken van de dolboorden
en de boeg samenkomen.
Ik weet niet wat het is
aan deze plek dat de dingen
zo soepel gedaanteverbloesemen
tot hun huidige zelf.
Het instrument is een boot,
de tonen zijn gedempt
en uit de hoofdlampen van de jongens
strijken ladders dun licht
over de buizen.
Misschien hoorden we zeehonden
aanzwemmen in de haven
waar ze de meisjes
hun handklapspel beantwoorden –
ik vraag me af of zij
op hun spookachtige manier –
hier was alles –
verloren woorden kreunden, zoals
ook ik probeer, hun echo, die
jodel naar verleden en toekomst.
Het gedicht wilde niet bestaan,
maar we konden niet blijven.
THE PLINKY-BOAT
Something near to true
night-darkness. The children
are playing the Plinky-Boat –
a xylophone made
from a reclaimed yoal –
built for flexibility in a coarse
sea, you can tell it fledged
with ease, just blushed
from boat to instrument,
transpiring streams
of these hoarse night-
notes. For its copper pipes
are cut to breadth exactly
so the boat’s beam is
its sotto voce and two rills
of rising pitch run into
the harmonic of each
hinnyspot – where
the boards of gunwales
and stem flow together.
I don’t know what it is
about this place that things
metaflower so readily
into their present selves.
The instrument’s a boat,
the notes unresonant
and scales of thin light
swarm over the pipes
from the boys’ headtorches.
Perhaps we heard seals
broaching in the harbour
as they answered the girls
’ handclapping game –
I doubt they moaned
in their haunted wise –
here was everything –
words lost, as I’m trying
to say, their echo, that
yodel into past and future.
The poem wouldn’t exist,
but we couldn’t stay.
are playing the Plinky-Boat –
a xylophone made
from a reclaimed yoal –
built for flexibility in a coarse
sea, you can tell it fledged
with ease, just blushed
from boat to instrument,
transpiring streams
of these hoarse night-
notes. For its copper pipes
are cut to breadth exactly
so the boat’s beam is
its sotto voce and two rills
of rising pitch run into
the harmonic of each
hinnyspot – where
the boards of gunwales
and stem flow together.
I don’t know what it is
about this place that things
metaflower so readily
into their present selves.
The instrument’s a boat,
the notes unresonant
and scales of thin light
swarm over the pipes
from the boys’ headtorches.
Perhaps we heard seals
broaching in the harbour
as they answered the girls
’ handclapping game –
I doubt they moaned
in their haunted wise –
here was everything –
words lost, as I’m trying
to say, their echo, that
yodel into past and future.
The poem wouldn’t exist,
but we couldn’t stay.
From: Byssus
Publisher: Picador, London
Publisher: Picador, London
Jen Hadfield
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1978)
Nothing is permanent in the poetry of Jen Hadfield (‘I don’t know what it is / about this place that things / metaflower so readily / into their present selves’). With a meticulous, sober gaze, she watches how everything around her sprouts and grows, buds and creeps into everything else. Her poems might be about the rugged nature in northern Shetland where she lives (‘the scrambling twig / hern...
Poems
Poems of Jen Hadfield
Close
THE PLINKY-BOAT
Something near to true
night-darkness. The children
are playing the Plinky-Boat –
a xylophone made
from a reclaimed yoal –
built for flexibility in a coarse
sea, you can tell it fledged
with ease, just blushed
from boat to instrument,
transpiring streams
of these hoarse night-
notes. For its copper pipes
are cut to breadth exactly
so the boat’s beam is
its sotto voce and two rills
of rising pitch run into
the harmonic of each
hinnyspot – where
the boards of gunwales
and stem flow together.
I don’t know what it is
about this place that things
metaflower so readily
into their present selves.
The instrument’s a boat,
the notes unresonant
and scales of thin light
swarm over the pipes
from the boys’ headtorches.
Perhaps we heard seals
broaching in the harbour
as they answered the girls
’ handclapping game –
I doubt they moaned
in their haunted wise –
here was everything –
words lost, as I’m trying
to say, their echo, that
yodel into past and future.
The poem wouldn’t exist,
but we couldn’t stay.
are playing the Plinky-Boat –
a xylophone made
from a reclaimed yoal –
built for flexibility in a coarse
sea, you can tell it fledged
with ease, just blushed
from boat to instrument,
transpiring streams
of these hoarse night-
notes. For its copper pipes
are cut to breadth exactly
so the boat’s beam is
its sotto voce and two rills
of rising pitch run into
the harmonic of each
hinnyspot – where
the boards of gunwales
and stem flow together.
I don’t know what it is
about this place that things
metaflower so readily
into their present selves.
The instrument’s a boat,
the notes unresonant
and scales of thin light
swarm over the pipes
from the boys’ headtorches.
Perhaps we heard seals
broaching in the harbour
as they answered the girls
’ handclapping game –
I doubt they moaned
in their haunted wise –
here was everything –
words lost, as I’m trying
to say, their echo, that
yodel into past and future.
The poem wouldn’t exist,
but we couldn’t stay.
From: Byssus
THE PLINKY-BOAT
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