Every day I walked through the street

and saw her standing,

behind the window.

Unashamed

elegant

showing off her curves

to anyone who wants to see.

How old would she be?

How young?

Where was she from?

How expensive would she be?

While I gaped at her,

I fantasized about everything I would do with her

should I get the opportunity.

In my dreams I played with her,

became one with her.

Every day I walked through the street again.

I could not retain myself any longer.

In stead of staring at her,

I made a decision.

I walked inside,

picked her up without asking,

tuned her strings

and played without stopping.

‘Yes, she is beautiful,’

agreed the violin maker.

‘But expensive.’

Tsead Bruinja is a Frisian poet.

He is now just as old as I was

when my father was as old

as I am now.

So, a young man.

Tsead often writes his poetry in Frisian,

but more often in Dutch.

I found a few of his works

a few years ago

in a bookshop behind the Grote Kerk in Antwerp.

By now I already have quite a collection

which I like to leaf through.

I received his latest work by post.

Overgrown.

Seventy four pages of words.

Partly made possible

thanks to a grant by the Dutch Literature Fund.

Someone named Willem wrote on the back:

“Tsead is a poet

who sings gently and lovingly,

but who can also use strong, rough images and sounds.

Kind-hearted and tough.

A stroking hand and a fist….”

Beside it is the poem “Light”.

there is light

and something standing between it

a wall

a figure

a long life

you are unapproachable

cultivating fists

covering a grave

with your whole body

darkening the hole

of a door

there is light

something standing between it

and there is a way

on which you leave your things behind

there is light

that wants to tell you something

go away

leave it

pick it up

The words of Tsead seems to come to life.

They change.

When I am happy

then reading his texts make me sad.

When I am sad

then reading his words make me happy.

Sitting on a terrace of the, as the folder describes,

Leading Small Hotel Hugenpoet,

under the smoke of Essen.

After a long day.

Was up early, went by car to Goch,

just across the German border from Nijmegen,

for a press conference about the building of the Alfred Jodocus Kwak House. 

A holiday house for families with children

troubled by their health.

The house will be, if the money can be found,

on a beautiful location at walking distance of a lake and large forest. Eighteen

houses must be built,

homes shaped like a fan around one ‘biosphere-like house,’

in the form of a huge drop.

Just like the text of Alfred Jodocus Kwak’s favourite song:

“Spetter pieter pater, lekker in het water.

Ga maar vast naar huis, ik kom een druppel later”.

“An educational and ecological example but above all:

for children sensual and realistic”,

a professor explained it at the press gathering.

My thoughts went out to Patricia.

She once wrote me a letter.

“Mister Van Veen, could you come and visit me some time?

I am in the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital in Utrecht.

The doctors say that I don’t have much longer to live.

Would you please come and sing a song for me?  I would like that very much.

The girl was so sick she could not live without the help of machines.

“Can you ever go away from here, on holiday?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered,

“if all the things and the people who operate them can go with.”

“Does such a place exist?”

Nobody knew.

I phoned friends, companies, organisations.

If such a place did not exist, then it has to be arranged?

A house where girls like Patricia can enjoy something more essential

than hospital walls and windows with a view on parked cars. 

It can be done!

But it would take much longer than the time Patricia had left.

I had to tell her that. 

She looked at me with surprise in her eyes, took my hand,

and, as only mothers can, gave it a squeeze.

How it happened, I don’t know.

But when our “Columbine House” was opened,

against all odds, Patricia was our first guest.

Yet sadly died on her first night in our holiday house.

Thought of her today, while the men where talking.

I hope that the beautiful new house in Goch,

will not be too late for another child. 

For more information: www.alfredjkwakstiftung.de or www.hermanvanveenfoundation.nl

If you ask me: ‘What is a Dutchman?’,

Then I cannot answer that. 

Because I am a Dutchman.

Only a foreigner can say something about my character,

simply because he is different. 

A, not related, deceased Dutch writer,

I read,

once held a lecture about the national character of the Swiss in Hinterschmidrütti,

not far from Zürich.

He knew more about the Swiss than the Swiss themselves.

His accuracy were proven

because at the end of his speech the listeners

threw him from a mountain into a gorge. 

This also happened to the German philosopher Heinrich Kopfstein

who was once invited to Amsterdam

to talk to a group of historians about the Dutch.

After his speech he was thrown into the Amstel river

and was never found again.  

It reminds me of one of my father’s motto’s:

Here lies John.  He came from the right. He was right. 

In The Netherlands there were never any orators

because about the feelings of togetherness

nothing could be done. 

Such a person would in the recent past

have preached

to surprised faces.

People would have asked themselves:

‘How is it possible that he is standing where I should stand’?

Our reality since the latest elections in Holland

has factually changed.

For a large part, we are not ourselves anymore.

Unpleasantly surprised as the continuous drizzle

has steamed up the sight of many, so it seems.

Have many Dutch people changed?

May I say something about it now?

Between the lamp and the ceiling

a small spider without being noticed

weaved a few small trails of shining thread.

Threads you can only see

when you open the glass door from the hallway

very carefully.

Not too slowly not too quickly,

maybe even with hesitation,

as if you don’t know

whether you want to enter

or stay outside.

Something that is happening to me

more frequently. 

Good,

otherwise I wouldn’t have seen the fine threads.

They tremble a bit,

because I have just placed the picture,

which my grandson made for me at school,

on a pile of books,

whereby the air moved. 

The small spider trails

are amazingly long, 

the ceiling is probably four meters high,

that the small beast is able to do something like this.

Fervently it claws its way to the top and down again,

as if he does not know why

once again.

‘What are you looking at?’ my wife asks

who sees her husband staring at nothing with great concentration.

‘I didn’t know

if I wanted to enter or stay outside

and then I saw

the small trails.’