Swing Set Swings Blueprints

Stefan Hertmans

late-

Only one cloud that we have seen, for
nothing ever looks like something else, like a funnel
appearing suddenly over the hill
cord, bright red and pink, veined and empty
a barrel full of wind and the coming evening,
probably a few miles wide, huge oyster
Drifting away in time.

Could I see from this distance
the point where, years ago, you and I were caught
on a wooden bench, during the cool spring
and the white light and bright, waving a sheet young
of capricious shapes, a forest path
blindly aiming at a face, maybe I could have


briefly saw the cloud appear,
even then, deep in your dreaming;

nothing to report under an old
so much to be silent and disappear.


*


Started

ran into the street without regard
and I like him more and more,
I thought he did it on the door. But

runs around in circles -
racing cars on the road. Now it is almost beyond
and I do not ever take time.

Just so my father, all his life,
could dream of my hand,
from small and fast, able to slip through the bars
deep into the rock and water.

Life goes in a blink of an eye.

seized him - he fearlessly
with his large eyes wide open and so quiet - I


with the deadly battle that will never leave
my life and my body.


*


Three apples and a mountain

The principal dans un tableau
c'est la distance. Paul Cézanne

1.

Three apples and a mountain -
enough to sit still for years
just look and look.
The moon is full on Sainte-Victoire,
at night is still a stone
phosphorescent
charred and burning on the side of the south.

I wrote to a friend, after the last of about fifty attempts
:
I'm too old and too sick, I can not do this. Ambroise Vollard
A: I did
a little progress.
Why so late and so difficult?

The painter is a walker. A road
mind hot rolled his eyes
and sleeps there like a snake. The incumbent

noon, evening of a life -
bright light blinds the eyes.

For the Cours Mirabeau Aix resides on the screen,
once, under the great plane trees
a petty tyrant lit
reached a ripe fruit - then made a circle
fairly quiet and was unaware of any cunning.

There is beauty in the old court houses and offices.
The passage of the painter has been preserved. Still ahead near the

advanced study lies in the garden transformed by eye color.

But only against the high wall of distant haze

things took shape and became
gray tint of color.

A cross stands in inaccessible
air melting. You climb the mountain

with nothing but your eyes
and the path is full of tiny strokes ugly.

Bellevue, Beauregard, Vauvenargues.
A mill and a village asleep. A wash of

Roman period.



2.

brushes are maintained in a silence still hot, even if the colors
cry out the sun.
He knew what was the distance.
stepped among the bodies, including apples
to better hear what he said the mountain. It is beyond
burning in appearance,
not revealed to the guest, with the owls and whispers

blacks in your ear at night.
you can sit out of your life there,
as children grow anywhere alone,
water always flows to a source.

But all those forms have thought about whether
in his head as he joined
so cleverly that in a dream I
recognize them as something once my
and yours, anyone who knows what
heat, silence
is an endless afternoon in the south?

Crush the insects to death on the terrace, not drinking too much absinthe

speaks quietly and with water. Give
evening sink into his being.

[...]


(English translations of Anila Resul)


*

Hertmans Stefan (Belgium, 1951) is professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent is considered one of most famous writers in the Dutch language and one of the leading contemporary poets. He has published novels, short stories, essays on literature and philosophy, theater and poetry texts. His works have been translated in England, France, Germany and Spain.