Leaf, with view (1.29.2007) / from STONE SONG, Liberty, a poem by Gerrit Achterberg

LIBERTY—a poem from
the Dutch by Gerrit Achterberg

Sometimes, in a shop window, you appear,
set up between others of the same gender,
dressed in new clothes and marked
with a little card, a price on your breast.

Then I know again how much I belong to you.
The only thing that in my life has meaning
becomes a thing counted at the checkout.
We go out together for an hour.

In the evening after six the shop window
is covered with a cloth as high as a person.
You manage to peek out the top with your eyes.

Departing people are making themselves ready
to banish the bad spirits about you,
so that no doll may mistake itself for a man.

Gerrit Achterberg (tr. Cliff Crego)

LIBERTY

Soms, in een etalage, komt gij voor,
tussen geslachtsgenoten opgesteld,
bekleed met nieuwe kleren en vermeldt
het kaartje op uw borst de prijs waarvoor.

Dan weet ik weer hoeveel ik u behoor.
Het enige wat in mijn leven geldt
wordt binnen op de toonbank neergeteld.
Wij gaan er samen voor een uur vandoor.

's Avonds na zessen is de winkelruit
van binnen manshoog met een doek bespannen.
Gij komt er met uw ogen bovenuit.

Vale personen maken zich gereed
de boze geesten bij u uit te bannen,
opdat geen pop zich met een man vergeet.

Gerrit Achterberg
uit: Ode aan Den Haag (1953)

| download mp3 LIBERTY [5.9 Mb] |

Please visit my picture-poems.com MOUNTAIN WATER
print gallery. Above is a set of about 60 recent images.
(Mouseover controls / lower right for full-scrren mode)

I might just mention here, following the simple ethical principle,
First, do no harm, that I never use cars or trucks or snowmachines.
Instead, I do everything on foot, or bike or ski. I think this in a
direct way affects my work, and deeply affects how I see
the world. So all the photos above were approached
on foot—including all the 'in between spaces,' sometimes
involving journeys of weeks or months.

I would not want to work any other way.

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New English translations
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of Rainer Maria Rilke's
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