translated by Arno Bohlmeijer

In that old village 
at the end of the last road, 
when you take the sandy path 
and enter through the little gate, 
you’ll see seven granddads 
working their small land. 

When further away from here 
you’ll walk by all these fields, 
past the seven granddads 
until the very end, 
then on the last patch 
you’ll see a blooming lettuce. 

The granddad of that little land 
died yesterday. 

After her career as a journalist and editor, Mirjam van Houten is a recently awarded writer and artist. The magnificent ‘simplicity’ and natural frankness of her big-little verse, prove that few words can have many effects. 

Arno Bohlmeijer is the winner of a PEN America Grant 2021, a poet and novelist, writing in English and Dutch, published in six countries, and in Universal Oneness: an Anthology of Magnum Opus Poems from around the World, 2019.