Hannie Rouweler (Netherlands)

Exclusive: European poetry: Curated by Agron Shele

Hannie Rouweler (Goor, 13 June 1951) has been living in Leusden since the end of 2012.

Her sources of inspiration are nature, love, loss, childhood memories and travel. In 1988 she debuted with Raindrops on the water. Since then more than 40 poetry volumes have been published, including poetry books in translation (Polish, Romanian, Spanish, French, Norwegian, English). Her poems are translated in about twenty languages.

She attended five years evening classes in painting and art history, art academy (Belgium).

She published a few stories (short thrillers); is a compiler of various anthologies and poetry collections. She is a member of the Flemish Association of Poets and Writers (VVL).

The poet and his hat

The role plays. The poet knows his words

better

than a rendition in any film -

he chews

he swallows and spits out

and what's left

in his hat: it is not that pigeon

that died or the rabbit

half unconsciously leaving the stage

disappearing in the theatre scenery

just like words come and go and come back again

and deputy wise 

stammering, sighing, crying out, keeping silent.

So keep your hat as good as it goes

and place it carefully on a table.

So let everyone look at your hat

as if it were

a red shoe made of synthetic leather snakeskin

remnant of a wild animal

from the safari park of dreams and deceits.

Keep your hat, dear poet,

never lend it out

otherwise you will never get it back.

(for Tony Rombouts)

THE HEROES OF THE PAST

(Russian soldiers, graveyard Rusthof, Leusden)

Here they’re lying side by side, heroes,

young soldiers,

like they also fought side by side

on foreign territory

for freedom. For others.

Who sees the crosses on the long rows

will be caught by an unprecedented sadness,

a face that belongs with each grave

still from a young adolescent,

maybe twenty, a little older, still a boy

with a father and a mother far away.

Someone from the platoon that shot them

like rabbits on an open field,

then wiped the mud from his soldier's shoe,

must have thought: this is crazy.

Someone from the enemy must have thought:

this is madness, we have become the enemy

of our own souls, our own humanity.

They lie in long rows, the boys who fought for

freedom and fatherland. We will never forget them.

The sacrifices they have made go far beyond limits

of a single man. The end, a profound and bitter taste.

Dove on a branch

Good morning, Mr. Pigeon! Did you sleep well last night?

and do you come to my window, for a tasty breakfast?

Wind force 8. The rustling outside of a plastic cover

around a motorcycle on the terrace of the neighbour lady across.

The bushes shake dangerously with their branches back and forth,

the roots hold them in the earth. That good earth

that preserves everything, absorbs it, and digests and let grow.

Despite the winter there are still small white flowers in the grass,

stubbornly sticking out their small white heads everywhere.

Snow stays away, this winter, it is more autumn than another

season, that plagues this country and also my mind, the breakdown

and shaking words loose. The new alphabet took the pigeon

on the branch of my tree in front of the window with him.

I will have to wait until he comes back, new meanings

lodges in changes that are nearly in sight.

Setu, July 2019