For Toon Tellegen



Machines quite gentle are called for
for one fine day to fly to nowhere.
Propellers, pipes and bolts are needed,
the leaf that's falling from a plane tree,
the ear-wax of a child perhaps

and much of the impossibly beautiful.
A pure-white blackbird piping merrily,
one fine spring morning in a leap year.
All of this is certainly required
of one who would be flying nowhere.

For nowhere is a place where bad luck reigns
and even if not everything can go amiss,
there's nothing even so that goes aright.
The gentlest of machines are needed
for one fine day to fly to nowhere.

Translation: John Irons