Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Jos De Haes

LE VIEUX MOULIN

Is a well amid wet grass the road abuts.
A layer of humus where oak beams once stood
gives two clumps of wild loosestrife the guts
to stand up tall like trees within a wood.

Two bands of stalks it lies between.
Against them, right and left, its legs are packed,
Rising to hips quite worthy of a queen,
old gold lying on a millstone that’s cracked.

From above between two purple patches viewed,
Recumbent golden flesh of a Sybil divine
in a Mycenaean shaft, but maddeningly crude
masked upon the slivers she can recline

from breaches in the Ardennes cellar wall.
The silence thickens when the mask is broken,
river ravine air forms a calm, enduring hall
when the clenched jaw releases words unspoken:

“All you call gold may be just bronze and brown.
I at my level see the roots that bind the ground
and grey fungi made of glued moth down,
and past my hand ants lug their larvae round."

Le vieux Moulin

Le vieux Moulin

“Le vieux moulin” heet in de natte berm een put.
Een laag humus geworden eikebalkenhout
geeft aan twee benden basterdwederik de fut
om erin steil te staan als bomen van een woud.

Zij ligt tussen die twee cohorten stengels in.
Zij drukt tegen hun flanken links en rechts een been
dat opgaat in de heupen van een koningen,
liggend oud goud op een gebarsten molensteen.

Van boven af gezien tussen twee vlekken paars
liggend het gouden vlees van een sibylle Gods
in een Myceense schacht, maar gekmakend barbaars
ook, met haar masker rustend op de schilfers rots

uit bressen van de Ardenner molenkeldermuur.
De stilte wordt verdikt wanneer dat masker breekt,
de hal van de rivierklooflucht wordt rust en duur
als de geklemde kaak loslaat en woorden spreekt:

“Al wat gij goud wil noemen is misschien maar brons.
Ik zie op mijn niveau de wortels in de grond
en grijze zwammen van gelijmd nachtvlinderdons,
en mieren langs mijn hand dragen hun larven rond.”
Close

LE VIEUX MOULIN

Is a well amid wet grass the road abuts.
A layer of humus where oak beams once stood
gives two clumps of wild loosestrife the guts
to stand up tall like trees within a wood.

Two bands of stalks it lies between.
Against them, right and left, its legs are packed,
Rising to hips quite worthy of a queen,
old gold lying on a millstone that’s cracked.

From above between two purple patches viewed,
Recumbent golden flesh of a Sybil divine
in a Mycenaean shaft, but maddeningly crude
masked upon the slivers she can recline

from breaches in the Ardennes cellar wall.
The silence thickens when the mask is broken,
river ravine air forms a calm, enduring hall
when the clenched jaw releases words unspoken:

“All you call gold may be just bronze and brown.
I at my level see the roots that bind the ground
and grey fungi made of glued moth down,
and past my hand ants lug their larvae round."

LE VIEUX MOULIN

Is a well amid wet grass the road abuts.
A layer of humus where oak beams once stood
gives two clumps of wild loosestrife the guts
to stand up tall like trees within a wood.

Two bands of stalks it lies between.
Against them, right and left, its legs are packed,
Rising to hips quite worthy of a queen,
old gold lying on a millstone that’s cracked.

From above between two purple patches viewed,
Recumbent golden flesh of a Sybil divine
in a Mycenaean shaft, but maddeningly crude
masked upon the slivers she can recline

from breaches in the Ardennes cellar wall.
The silence thickens when the mask is broken,
river ravine air forms a calm, enduring hall
when the clenched jaw releases words unspoken:

“All you call gold may be just bronze and brown.
I at my level see the roots that bind the ground
and grey fungi made of glued moth down,
and past my hand ants lug their larvae round."
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
Lira fonds
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