Met Her...

I met her at the beach, as slowly sifting.

The shells from hand to hand,

Absentmindedly, like a game

That fascinated and yet bored her,

She dropped them back again into the sand.

It was the same with us-fate from the start. Doomed us to be together, and bored yet fascinated,

She gave her love without reserve

But when her glance went through me and

beyond me,

I knew she never wholly gave her heart.

I learned to fear those moments when she'd stare

In quiet rapture, listening

To something I could neither see nor hear, And she, forgetting me, was lost completely, Lost to a memory I could not share.

Then was the loneliness around her like a tower Which first I sought to scale or penetrate And overpower-but had to quit in vain Because her eyes, though looking at me, Were living in a different hour.

Reprinted with permission of Vriendschap, Holland.

And now I fail again, as in my hand

I sift the very sand that cuts her off from life;

I never could possess her-nor will she set me

free,

Her tragic smile, forever beyond my reach, Still beckons through the sand.

-By CHR. HILSUM-BEUCKENS Translated from the Dutch by ANNA VERGELEGEN

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