THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY Poem by Maria van Daalen

the day unfolded with the room a battlefield
wineglasses shattered and a toppled-over bottle
the mirror thousandfold, the vase with roses
a direct hit which bleeding between papers
curtains ripped off, and the tv still on
my glasses broken on the floor by the glass table
which, oddly enough, was still intact

swans black, swans pale,
out to fairies isle we'll sail
fairies isle is closed
the key to it is
oh, look, the verb to scream is broken, sentences in half
trampled deep into the carpet
or written with a finger on the windowpane

I am leaving, do you hear me, and I never will come back
if you don't step aside, I‘ll smash you, so smash, you smashed
a hole
through which, a long way off I saw the night
in 1942, when my father rode his bike
from Den Haag to Eindhoven, got past the German lines
in order to see his wife
a love for a life that was too short
a quarter-century later he was sitting at her bedside, she was still young, and died
I see their hands, entwined in death,
her life ebbing away beneath his face
but how he got there in that winter's night
during the occupation, captured, beaten
and questioned, never did we find out later
if he was traitor or had been betrayed
of his resistance group virtually all were shot
a burden which he carried in his body
in vertebrae, smashed to pieces, the same deep breach

that you smashed, that night

the silver chain fell from between my clothes
in a corner of the hall laid the silver pendant
that you had ordered specially at Taurum goldsmiths

the relationship is broken but not love, my child said casually
my love is never broken, for
"the critic loves the poem about the red beech tree
but the poet loves the red beech tree"

ask me anything you want, I'd said
I can give anything away, my whole kingdom half, my body
just not my talent, for that is on loan

then I asked you, where were you, and you screamed for hours
then I asked, but you weren't there, you were that night
absent, but night was everywhere
just like blood and sweat and vomit and snot, and more blood

when the situation becomes unbearable
most men fall asleep

in the morning you were lying on the floor
as if the world was turning and in all innocence
you wanted to await the new day dreaming
but dreaming you were not, you slept
then I woke you up and said, go out of me
if I am not safe within my body
all rules of grammar will come disconnected
the conjunction between earth and blood and language will be gone

now leave
give back to me the keys of love and of fear
when I embody breaking, I am whole

and thus
my history is
your history as well

I have been beaten up when you were angry
I have lain on the floor, concussed, for three whole days and Erzulie has looked after me
I have waited wordlessly while you were screaming, and fear, fear, fear I had to
I broke two ribs and I have been raped
and when I was in Sarajevo yesterday
I saw my blood in spatters on the marble
applied in order to commemorate the heroes
I have been marked, been hit, been eaten
and burned in every place where wood grows

my words I saved, I told you nothing
such men know about length, not about space

then I said: an old Haitian proverb says
Bay kou, bliye. Pote mak, sonje.
who hits, forgets, who bears the mark, remembers

who inflicts violence, will lose
who is of violence the recipient
will not be sacrificed, but will receive the power of anger
and will incorporate and carry it

this is the law of conservation of energy
these are the real sciences

I am an inexhaustible source
I am a body, a reservoir of anger
anger has been handed over to me
because I am free and a woman and space
all that anger, it is energy, that you didn't know
I, thank you, I have energy for centuries
I can completely redefine the world
in terms of love and of breath
my voice reaches from Diotima to the present
and I
speak here
"the critic loves the poem about the red beech tree
but the poet loves the red beech tree"

and then
entered Natasja

the same one who has made
the bronze statues of rapes and carried them
in Groningen, she says, when there's a woman raped
I'll load one of my statues in my van
to leave it at the place of rape by night
then I'll keep vigil over it that night, I said
and I will read aloud, all through the night

Natasja carried one of her statues inside
and carefully she placed it on my work top
a Venus of Antwerp, cast from bronze, clad in power
like the Nikè of Samothrace
who from Athena's hand flies forward
the Louvre to and fro

and then

a man was sitting on the Pont des Arts with a bottle of Moët&Chandon and two crystal glasses
a man was sitting in front of the temple in Kuala Lumpur, with strings of fragrant jasmine blossoms, and stiff stems of pink lotus
a man, dark as the night, was walking towards me in Iowa Mall, the baby on his arm, his two-year old son, running ahead, saw me and shouted Superman! Superman!
a man was lying asleep on the tarmac beside the highway, head on his worn grey backpack, he didn't know the way, his name was Dionysos
once in a while he sends an email from Egypt
a man sits singing in Montreal, he doesn't see me, he is singing for the goddess
a man is on the Leidsegracht, in 1968, mysteriously smiling he turns his head toward me
we'll have a drink when he is with his sailing boat in Heeg
a sniper is on the lookout at Dupont Circle
but wherever I am, I am not coming back

a lot of places I, thanks to the goddess, have forgotten
but the snow is thick in Boston
and the chestnuts are pattering down in Dreuzy
but a man is sitting in the Vismarkt with his head in his hands, long after I will have walked past

and when Natasja returns
and offers me the same statue in chocolate
lifesize this time
breasts in hand, this chocolate Venus will provide
the world with chocolate nourishment

and when Athena returns
- but goddesses are omnipresent, call me and I am here (I am here)

and when I come back and will once again live in this poem

the space probe will land on Titan and send its waves through the ether
the mermaids will be swaying in the Gulf of Atjeh till the descending floating bodies dissolve in pearls and single-celled organisms
the war fires in Baghdad will burn to ashes and be dispersed
and just one single flower will bloom
a daisy
in the spot where I am to be buried
this is my purest joy
pushing up daisies