IJMUIDEN Poem by Marije Langelaar

Come together these cells with a form of ambition
slide snakelike through a tube that traps us
here we have to adjust so many times we want to escape! Instead of that we give ourselves courage, an ear is formed, we shall hear! We don eyes we shall see, we blink dutifully, the fingers grow we shall feel. Joyful we become and full of expectation.
We come outside, let off a cry more piercing than the light. We are blind, deaf, dumb and numb all at once. Horrific thoughts enter then we are one of them. They celebrate our arrival jubilantly. Call us baby. It is not easy for us take us back somewhere deep in the brain we cannot cope with so much humptydumpty.
We allow ourselves to be filled with all their thoughts, they pull us into babygrows, nappies, we gurgle and it is only in flashes suddenly at the sea in IJmuiden that we vaguely recall, weren't we once such a sea that
leaps up on rocks, that sparkles.