After Remco Campert’ Lamento
by dean bowen
Here now in the echoes of your language
I’m lost, a no-man’s-land along
the deep water where I thought
that always, that you’d always
Here now in the echoes of so much
and lost twilight through the embers in your voice
that I thought that always that always
fire always fire and the storm
always fire and the storm
that always a new plain
at dawn the diffuse dawn
that there’d always be ritual
that I always in the living ritual
that always is lost on a new plain
the living ritual
in the echoes of your language that always the anointing
that always along my insides the anointing
that always the fire will burn
that always the storm will rage
always along my soft insides
in the echoes of your language that I’m lost,
a no-man’s-land along the deep water
where I thought that always again
that always the voice
that always the voice, in the poem
the poem always along my insides
that always the heart beating
always the warm heart beating
along my insides anointed and the storm
that always the living voice always
the echoes and the no-man’s-land along the deep water
that language is there in the fire in the storm
that I always therein
that I thought that I always therein
that the living ritual always that
always the embers that this never
that this never that always the twilight
that the fire always a new plain
that the diffuse dawn always
that I always a no-man’s-land thought I’d never
that always your language that always your language
and the echoes that storm within me
that I in the ritual of the echoes
that I always in the light
of your language and in its beating heart
a home