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Pim Cornelussen: Someone Sighs

By Pim Cornelussen, translated by Paul Vincent
14 January 2021 2 min. reading time Friday Verses

This week’s Friday Verses are written by Pim Cornelussen. We translated Iemand zucht (Someone Sighs). This poem first appeared in Dutch in Het Liegend Konijn, a magazine for contemporary Dutch-language poetry.

Pim Cornelussen (Brunssum, b. 1989) works in various capacities in the performing arts, including that of literary editor, writer and programme-maker. His work is located at the interface of artistic imagination, philosophical reflection and related science. Experiences that can prompt us to deal with the world differently. At present he is building up a practice as an artistic researcher, focusing on the operation of our ecological memory.

Someone Sighs

Whatever tongue or whatever idea

we are lost
for words, sounds, gestures when we look
at our planet from the bleak primeval essence of space.

A blue dot amid all that escaping light,

before us, beneath us, a fallow area waiting for the right tone.
Let us listen to the first-born
who is brought into the eternal black of the world,

let him look and see at a glance the centuries
for which we have toiled to heave pyramids and skyscrapers heavenwards

are almost invisible.
Listen to his words,
It is the first space language, the essence of our planet

described extraterrestrial.
Let us sing those words like a mantra over the world,
like an exercise that – s us again. And again. And again.

(Dutch version below the photo)

Pim Cornelussen c Arber Sefa Pim Cornelussen
© Arber Sefa

Iemand zucht

Welke taal of welke gedachte ook

het ontbreekt ons
aan woorden, klanken, gebaren als we kijken
naar onze planeet vanuit de woeste oeressentie van de ruimte.

Een blauwe stip te midden van al dat ontsnappende licht,

voor ons, onder ons, braakliggend gebied wachtend op de juiste toon.
Laat ons luisteren naar de eerstgeborene
die in het eeuwig zwart ter wereld wordt gebracht,

laat hem kijken en in één oogopslag zien dat de eeuwen
waarin we piramides en wolkenkrabbers de hemel in hebben gezwoegd

vrijwel onzichtbaar zijn.
Luister naar zijn woorden,
Het is de eerste ruimtetaal, het wezen van onze planeet

buitenaards beschreven.
Laat ons die woorden vervolgens als een mantra over de wereld zingen,
als een oefening die ons opnieuw. En opnieuw. En opnieuw.

website Pim Cornelussen

Pim Cornelussen c Arber Sefa

Pim Cornelussen

literary editor, writer and programme-maker
photo © Arber Sefa

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