PERFORMANCE
In days when different rituals
prevailed and howling storms
were on my repertoire to make
bedtime a theatrical event, we
staged worlds that paved the
way to face the real one that
mirrors openness and gaiety
to protect you from its squalls.
Now you are out there, and
my role done, I still close the
curtains of your room at eight -
occasionally, I protrude my lips
and put cupped hands over my
mouth, hoping that, when winds
pick up, you are safe and sound,
and will do well.
REFLECTION
Digital audioware not
only visualizes the
African songs of
the marsh warbler,
it also displays the
clutter that comes with
it: a motorbike, a plane
or someone hammering.
Each is depicted as
a separately coloured
stretch of reed and its
mirror image in water.
How easy it is to
select and cut all,
isolating the warbler
to its clinical essence.
It also works the other
way round; add swishing
trees to a goldcrest's call
or breakers to a stint's.
Pure trickery, but no one
knows or cares when
props help to make
more of a performance.
It is like writing a poem;
you can throw things in
or out if you know
what you are doing.
If you throw out the bird,
for instance, you can
reconsider the beauty of
wind bustling the reed.
STARS
From our perspective,
we see them for what
they are: fixed patterns,
as in a pinholed lantern.
Linking some of them
is an antiquated trick
to help us find our way
among the perforations.
Excellent, of course, for
old-school navigation, but
do we now need stars to
tell us where we stand?
Not really, unless we
redefine our outlook to
kindle a beauty which
repositions the world and us.
Harry G. de Vries (1961) is a teacher of English at Avans University, the Netherlands. In 2003 his Dutch translation of a selection of poems by Philip Larkin was published. It was not until 2014 that he started writing poems himself; much to his own surprise, it was not his mother tongue but an English voice that set him going.