Nijmegen city poet Frouke Arns at opening ceremony
The city poet of Nijmegen Frouke Arns will write a poem for the opening ceremony of the Walk of Wisdom on 21 June. She will also recite this poem herself during the opening. This gives the ceremony extra cachet. Below is an earlier poem by Frouke from her collection People you might know. The poem was published by publisher Marmer in 2013 and would fit the route.
You can sign up for the – free – ceremony in the Stevenskerk via this link.
Polaroids 1-4
1.
Leave on a day when the clouds can still go either way.
Don’t forget the counsel, ah, forget every counsel,
You go out and make memories new, of places, people,
that particular incidence of light.
One thing: wind is elusive, it can only be
know in what moves him.
2.
Only when you’re gone I’ll think
to something you said; you still leave me
laughing in an empty room.
3.
The forest plays that the forest is; In this circumstance,
comes from growth everything: color, distance, height.
Out of the wings of tribes steps a man,
Ask where he lives and he’ll call you a city
in a country where you were almost once; Show him the way.
4.
If you stay in one place for a long time, you won’t take pictures
more and also the reverse is true: go days
and nights away from home and you forget the faces
And small gestures from those dear to you, to your standing
between trees, high in the crowns a rustling
and you know again: here it is, here.
Marble Publishers (2013) Frouke Arns.
