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Poetry

[Nowhere has denying]

By Hans Faverey
Translated from Dutch by Francis R. Jones

Nowhere has denying
reigned as rife as in this not
which is outsitting me here. Oh, if only death would
outstare itself for ever
in its iron mirror.

God, what a down-at-heel hope
for a voiceless evaporation

with wind and light as the silent
witnesses which one finds here.

 

From Springvossen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2000). By arrangement with the estate of Hans Faverey.

English

Nowhere has denying
reigned as rife as in this not
which is outsitting me here. Oh, if only death would
outstare itself for ever
in its iron mirror.

God, what a down-at-heel hope
for a voiceless evaporation

with wind and light as the silent
witnesses which one finds here.

 

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