VOLCANO ASCENT
I
The horses snorted as we mounted
and put on the stinking, worn-out blankets.
We looked back no more: there were no other
roads to conjugate than this stony path.
Even your clinic vanished from sight,
I surrendered myself to a moonless night.
Countless stars fell from their own light.
The Southern Cross waxed enormously in might.
We climbed until below freezing point.
Gradually I felt a strong affinity with your father;
would keep silent about more than I know,
but hide a pen behind my shield.
II
The first watch over, we led the horses
on down. I stumbled; not on the worn-
out track into the crater but on how
he said that I lied in verses. About them.
The sea of settled ash had a hollow sound
beneath the hooves. I did not want to
cross the limit but he drives me, hailing
in showers of love, and stiffens me, in you.
We passed beyond our sleep, had children,
snarled into each other. Determined
to gain happiness we reached the staircase,
and climbed, as if he had never read them.
III
This was the oldest volcano of the three
in the crater. Sulphur caught my breath;
one day I would scatter him, with all his love
in that trunk full of camphor in the attic.
Far beneath us clouds streamed past.
You embraced me actually, behind his back,
stroked me out of this nameless night.
Reconciliation made room for resentment.
With the one writ after the other
we rose above his hardening words.
From within you I scarcely recovered from this view,
never from his oracle, the right of the officer.
Publisher: In de Knipscheer, December 2003.
Book: € 15,00, cd (music by Dirk Stromberg): € 18,00. Set book + cd: € 29,50.
Postbox 6107, 2011 HC Haarlem, The Netherlands.
www.alberthagenaars.nl
www.indeknipscheer.nl
