CAUDA Poem by Cees Nooteboom

Look at things, see them
in their metaphysical innocence,
not certain they exist.



Remember that discussion
in the bower, Nordic summer,
hydrangeas, the essential frog,
roses, masks.
Incense without a church.



A butterfly flies up in China
and changes a stormfront in Finland.
Someone said it. You were silent.
This you already knew.



When do paintings shed
the painter, when does the same matter become
a different thought? The evening fog stole across
the grass, drowned lawn, fountain,
windows.



Music, the splash of oars.
Someone turns on the light, someone
has no faith in dusk.
The question without answer
drifts around the house.