VELDMAN, Vic


What matters

(to our daughter)

Small things remain:

the peace of rustling poplars,

the yellow buttercups and grass growing green,

the smell of wood after vernal showers,

the smile, the blush on a girl’s cheeks,

the warmth of your name,

the child’s hand at the window,

the tear making clear:

“I’ll be there.”

Parted

She is forever gone, and I shall see her face
no more! I shall not hear her speak again
and at the thought my soul is sick with pain.
She is gone! I think I beheld her in the haze,
and then she vanished. Gone, and in her place
a stranger—nay, not her—I saw! My brain
is reeling, the gloomy earth is a bleak plain,
except this grave—where I shall sit and trace
her name on that green stone? She is gone!
And not a hair's breadth further from the sun,
than I am now. I know that I will have to wait
a little while for death!—My life is done,
the mornings of my days are past and gone,
I can but weep and watch the dreary gate.


Shakespeare revisited

A story of a son’s duty for revenge to appease

A father's restless, darkened soul. Of a mind

Unsatisfied, raging with brooding thoughts,

Seeking redress and answers, solitude.

Amid life's uncertain sea, we ponder

The reasons why. In madness we disguise

To unearth truth where treachery abides.

This tale now taking a mysterious twist,

Unloosing, love’s loss endured, desire's hunger

For bloodshed all around. Our hearts entwined,

We mirror wayward souls in sunless worlds,

Behold unfolding grace! Deep wisdom calls

For journeys into heaven and strange reflection

Of man's frailty, when pursuing resurrection.

I long to craft a timeless verse

Against all reason,

I would like to write

the ultimate poem,

a lasting monument*,

of beauty and light;

In short, the miracle

the world was waiting for,

a pageant of words

where my and your eyes

are drawn to.

But who reads now

in a hundred years

my poems, let alone

this poor attempt?

Not this boy.

It seems to me that

the ultimate poem,

if it is ever written at all,

will never be read,

so, we are even, reader.

* See Horace, Odes, III, 30

Jardin de curé

Among the quiet sighs of trees,

I find a room in dappled peace,

where roots of thought begin to grow

and whispers catch the winds that blow.

The soil holds grace in silence deep,

a sanctuary where old spirits sleep;

the softest chairs are blades of green,

embroidered with a silver sheen.

A vaulted hall, a leaf-fringed dome,

where a heart soars and souls roam;

each flower breathes a secret word,

each bee hums prayers seldom heard.

The sky‘s a roof of crystal glass,

beneath which the clouds gently pass,

and every bloom, with friendly face,

restores my truest sense of grace.

My garden is a tender, waving sea,

a shelter gently shaped for me;

where petals hold an indrawn breath,

and hope takes root in earthen depth.

In every leaf the four seasons rise,

along these paths lie lessons wise,

and though I walk these ways alone,

I’ve found a place that I call home.