Our back is a wood without paths
great-great-grandfather's sixty oak trees
planted on his wedding day when
the house was ready, the house
in which the plans were made
to demolish it
and the trees
can pay for it
Everything new, no past anymore
that we can touch, but
young planting without shade
over the eighth generation
Our back: no wood, no garden
a hole filled with tall grass
in which sixty twigs hide
Inside the house too, there is light everywhere
Poem 1922 Amsterdam, 2018-11-12 Contemplation of a 90-year-old woman, of the 5th generation since the ancestor who planted the felled trees, who is a great-grandmother herself Collection:Half The Work Keyword:Life: stream (go by)