UP IN SPACE Poem by Jeroen Theunissen

1.

I, at thirty-one, glowing with health
and strength, with joy and with anger,
left for space, returned to space. I, man
of empty keyholes, found a destiny.

I travelled through space, became a space
tourist, I went on foot through space. I left
one fine twenty-fifth of October,
my house groaned sleepless landscape.

My eyes coursed across the earliest inhabitants,
I saw tennis courts, became an optimist,
a space tourist, on the Kortrijksesteen road
and the E 17 was the air a white aircraft line.

You moon ate the last white beetles,
your lights weren't turned on,
you sun dusted off houses,
wisdom counted her pennies.

And I went to the pub sports friends eatery,
pilgrim me. And in my backpack I carried:
lavender, marjoram, milk, earth, a towel,
trousers, shoes, a jumper, provisions,

addresses of promise, I took with me a song
of the chiffchaff, a song of the dancing queen,
the laughter of fresh oranges and I brought a tent
and a sleeping bag, forgetting the compass.

I sent an email to newsletter dot com,
to Abdelkarim, to Jozef and Katja,
to Anne-Katrien, to Cecilia and Nadia,
to Wieme and Veerle and Ingrid and Els,

to Walter and Pieter and Piet and Nel,
to Wouter, Kees, Hans, Karim and Willem-Jan,
to aunts and uncles, to my employer and GP,
I wrote: I'm off, dear people, I'm leaving -

but you will receive my news from space, I will
write you an email for sure if I can get a connection
up there. Because I had abandoned walls, abandoned
the sea and the mountains, without homesickness,

on the expedition, I had a ticket in my pocket
for places elsewhere and I had the option to return,
the future was there, lay in my hands like a knot
in a sheet: missus I turned my back on you.