15 decemberxml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Maene, pianobouwer.

Een gedicht dat ik half juli van vorig jaar had ingelogd en dat het resultaat is van een bezoek met de groep van Probus, aan het atelier van pianobouwer Maene in Ruisselede, een gedicht dat ik nu heb herwerkt:

Out of Flander’s fields

a temple, has risen, a beacon

to mankind, a consolidation

of earth and air, of fire and water,

spirit and tradition,

as has been experienced

gloriously

in our gothic cathedrals.

So pray with us, when you enter

this sanctuary, searching the words

we need to say, poor sinners

in a world of gradual disintegration.

For this is the silence of the Steinway,

impregnated with Mozart and Ravel

with Beethoven and Bach:

still singing in its stillness:

fingers wandering still over ivory,

deciphering sounds and intonation

in twilight hours, when death

is lurking behind the walls.

Remembering Chopin’s

sonata funèbre,

notes so pure, as beads

falling on a floor as if it was

on mother’s kitchen floor, and we,

barefooted on a summer afternoon

drinking  buttermilk with lumps

of butter in it, now so long ago.

Forgive me if I speak these words

to all who came to comprehend

the sacred message
to the few, here assembled,

testifying in astonishment

the marvels of man’s

creativity.