Written Down Poem by Jan Baeke

Glad we were able to strike at the heart.
Written to the brotherhood
that we lack the ability to really access our knowledge
but should hope that through faith
all will become clear to us.

It was a warm day
and the bread and the olives
were having a rough time.
We're strangers here.
Is there another way to say that?
Even the bread and the olives are here by chance.

We have learned
to name things by their shape and flavour
and that explains enough.

When, despite the heat, you came to ask
who had invented the word
in which bread stayed fresh and fragrant
all I could do was point to the end of the street
where there are signposts
where someone happened to be passing
who called himself Gabriel
and where a bird began to sing on a roof
a piercing song, like a stab to your spleen.

What you really wanted to know
was the word for love
but there wasn't one.
Only for the fear that goes with it.

Translation: 2015, Judith Wilkinson