Dreamwater Poem by Erik Menkveld

Through reddish brown ferrousness concealing its soil
it rages meters down from paths on either side,
intensified dead nettle overruns the banks.

Steep decline. A drawbridge. Narrower, bluer, motionless
it becomes after a kilometer - pinned down with reed.
And then I see it: a magnificent, unnoticed

ending set against a concrete edge, behind which to the left
bare grassland and a site with log cabins
for sale and octagonal bowers.

Translation: 2005, Willem Groenewegen