Looking at mountains Poem by Dirk van Bastelaere

When the Swiss evening falls,
backlit behind the billowing white of curtains
the mountain's watching.

Its stare is the mucus
in the heart of things
that hounds us onward, hunted heart.

It's a swish
of granite

shifting slyly through our thoughts.

It lives in a hand
casting itself like shadow
across the bent back of a smiling man
who's tucking his kids in bed or, late at his drawing board,
drafting another facade of the world.

If you've ever looked at a mountain,
the mountains will always be looking back,
even if it's a wisp of mist,
the sound of a cowbell, the scree
that splits our attention in the moraine.

Translation by Francis R. Jones