THE FISH TOO Poem by K. Michel

If you stood the Royal Pond in The Hague on end
upright like a majestic wall of water
to let the light irradiate the depths
to hand the city a transparent mirror

an old-gold sheen would brush the houses
and someone would be first to cry "look" and point
the traffic all comes hooting to a halt
all meetings are abruptly adjourned
and the streets are filled with eyes and hubbub

a princely banquet, hunters in an autumn wood
seals and documents, veiled naked women
everyone sees something different in the pond wall
but all of them look deep back into time

And finally the royal fish can also
look out over the scaly skin of roofs
at the glittering towers and ice palaces
the trees by the dunes, the yellow beach sand

"look", the fish nudge each other, "that silver-grey
that shimmering foaming, churning vast thing
that stretches there to the horizon and beyond
that's the sea then, yes that there's the sea"