THE SHEEP OF HOLLAND
Sheep soft on the soft wet grass
between our house and the old windmill
Sheep running in the distance
a long row of cotton candy
pulled by invisible string
March lambs gambolling
on the sides and tops of dikes
The black cloud of hoof and mouth
gathering over England
strikes as we leave
Watching the news in Atlanta
my farmer fear pulls me back
Memory revises
I stand in the bare fields
look at the bare dikes
Taste the burning wool
BEACHCOMBER AT CAMPERDUIN
Statue of beachcomber
standing on a Holland dike
Arms filled with bronze wood
We lean with him
into the North Sea wind
HEROES OF HOLLAND
“Heroic, Resolute, Compassionate”
After the second world war
added by Queen Wilhelmina to
Amsterdam’s coat of arms
History and one look at their faces
would clearly show
it could have been there
for the whole country and much sooner
Opening the dikes to drown the armies
holding Haarlem against the Spanish
surviving slaughter of the innocents
“February Strike” against the Nazis
The armies may have been defeated
the people never
FRANK HALS MUSEUM
The pictures, the building
the furniture, the tapestries
the fireplaces, dishes and crocks
we walk into the sixteenth century
Our landlord at Camperduin
Dorsey reminds me at checkout
could put on the ruffled collar
and fit right in with the guildsmen
BOOKS AT BERGEN
I bought a book
at a lovely store in Bergen
Apparently it was book week
and they were giving away copies
of Salman Rushdie’s new book
It was in Dutch, so I gave it back
Perhaps I should have taken it
and been unable to read him
in two languages
DUTCH GIRLS AT THE CENTER
Two pretty girls
about four and six
pick up glasses in the smoking room
They are having a good time
chatting back and forth to each other
Unlike my children at play
this seems such an adult language
Like playing grownup in their
grandfather’s coat and shoes
POETRY AT BERGEN
If Austin is the Athens of America
Bergen is the Austin of Holland
Sunday afternoon
reading in seven languages
Feeling the difference
Harsh precision of the Dutch
If you could understand the language
you would understand the poem
Russian
The power of
a shot of cold vodka
and survival on the steppes
Afrikaans
Dutch rubbed smooth
by the soft hills of Africa
Latin
Still the mother of language
singing through her children
Spanish
Music of Lorca
moving your body as you listen
French
Dark musings of Rimbaud
a shrug in every verb
English
The fish does not see water
but there was food everywhere
ANNA PAULOWNA
Dorsey likes that a town
is named for a woman
and the pretty doors on the houses
We stop at a garage for directions
I think this is okay in a town
named for a woman
The men with little English explain
that we have to go back, cross the tracks
go to the dike and turn right again
and the toilet is in the back shop
There are
Audis and Volkswagens up on hoists
the bathroom is clean, the tools are clean
the cars are clean, the floors are clean
If the dike breaks
and rolls across this town
Anna will be proud to know
there will be no oil slick on its surface
as it rolls across the fields
CRATER
Giant bowl below sea level
the whole world runs in over the edges
Tulips from Asia Minor by way of Austria
in the fifteenth century
Satisfactie van Amsterdam in 1566
“no one should be persecuted for his faith”
Jews pour in from Spain and Portugal
Huguenots from France, English Protestants
Germans from the Thirty Years War
Diamond cutters pour in from Belgium
Diamonds tumble in from everywhere
Ships are sent around the horn
trade brings back the world
This week in one small town
voices dialogue from five continents
energies seen and unseen come together
are stirred by large and small spoons
Everyone dips their cup into the cauldron
goes home with more
A POEM BEFORE HOLLAND
I travel to Holland
on wings of a childhood story
silver skates and finger in a dike
To lands wrestled from an angry sea
a sea that dearly wants them back
Unceasing vigilance to keep the prize
a dark line drawn across their eyes
I see windmills chop the salt wet air
Art and flowers leaping up in faith
behind thin walls
Back to the little boy and the dike again
legal drugs and red lights in the rain
These are a fair and sturdy people
I like them now, and I like how
In a land where children must
so often act as men
They do not pass acts that treat
their men as children