TO POETRY Poem by Remco Campert

Do you really mean to leave me, poetry
at three thirty in the afternoon
in the Rue du Four
while above me the sky closes down
in darkening tumult
and a street corner crashes into me
and I've lost count of all the people

well, you won't get away with it
I hang on tight to the rail in bus 39
and decide in a giddy moment
I won't put upwith your dumping me
like a woman her aged lover
who no longer has any rights

later in the little park at Sèvres-Babylone
where a merry-go-round moans out its waltz
and under the trees there's that black gent
with his grey stubble and cardboard suitcase
and that entire family that is homeless
and the American girlwho is going to a concert in the evening
with that sweet fellow she just met
who read her Prévert's poems
you're here again
friends for good
don't you ever forget it
dying is no excuse

Translated by Donald Gardner