Night Drive

.

Uit mijn boekenkast heb ik vandaag gekozen voor Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground; poems 1966-1996. En uit deze vuistdikke verzamelbundel het gedicht ‘Night Drive’ uit de bundel ‘Door into the dark’ uit 1969.

.

Night Drive

.

The smells of ordinariness

Were new on the night drive through France:

Rain and hay and woods on the air

Made warm draughts in the open car

.

Signposts whitened relentlessly.

Montreuil, Abbeville, Beauvais

Were promised, promised, came and went,

Each place granting its name’s fulfilment.

.

A combine groaning its way late

Bled seeds across its work-light.

A forest fire smouldered out.

One by one small cafés shut.

.

I thought of you continuously

A thousand miles south where Italy

Laid its loin to France on the darkened sphere.

Your ordinariness was renewed there.

.