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Unstable Cliffs

poetry book, 2019 NL

Unstable Cliffs contains a collection of photo’s and poems written on surfaces in The Netherlands, France, Canada and Australia over the last four years.  

Silver Lake

 

Between silver birches
along a sliver lake,
we sleep deep dreams.

Still water.
A body I have never seen before dives under.
Could it be a beaver?

I wait and stare,
hold my body still to invite him back.
But he won’t
so I follow him,
let my naked body sink
in the icy water.
Unable to hold myself in his brisk world
I jump on the rock
I was standing on,
and slowly fall
while the sun drinks the water from my skin
in drops
until I am empty.

Two birds with yellow breasts tjirp.
It doesn’t happen often that the world seems
exactly where it needs to be.
Everything in the right place,
and so calm,
that you can feel a rock breathe.
I slip further away
and sing back at the birds:
”Land of the silver birch.
Home of the beaver.”

The water moves.
An elegant black bird with white eyes
glances at me.
Just like the coyote
who greeted us
on the way in
at dusk.

I don’t want to wake up.
Don’t wake me up
into the the concrete
reality we made.
Where rocks don’t breathe
and dead trees are made
to shout; buy me!
In fleshy coloured squares
along high ways
that are ment to bring us;
home?

Don’t wake me up,
I don’t want to go
I am already here.

All works, text and photographs are the intellectual property of Nina van Hartskamp © 2020