Nature is for the satisfied or hollow.
And what does it add up to in this land?
A patch of wood, some ripples in the sand,
A modest hill where modest villas follow.
Give me the city streets, the urban grey,
Quays and canals that keep the water tamed,
The clouds that never look finer than when, framed
By attic windows, they go their windswept way.
The least expectant have most to marvel at.
Life keeps its wonders under lock and key
Until it springs them on us, rich, complete.
One dreary morning all this dawned on me,
When, soaking wet in drizzly Dapper Street,
I suddenly felt happy, just like that.
By: Jakobus Cornelis (Jacques) Bloem (1887-1966)
Translated by: Judith Wilkinson (1959- )