Twee bundels met gedichten bij schilderijen van kunstenaars. Rose Vandewalle schreef “De Vijver” bij het werk van de Amerikaanse schilder Tony Mafia. Het gedicht werd naar het Engels vertaald door Annmarie Sauer. De Nederlandstalige versie leest u in De Vijver.

THE POND Morning in Hoboken. Light meets me again, the light of long languid days at the pond near Lawrence Hall. Oh, eight again in the orphanage of Chicago! (My Cherokee daddy took a deadly drink of acid, run-down by the taunting sneers about his lineage.) All the time of the world. I and the boys never plan, it all happens to us of itself, like one day just being dropped here of itself. It is a tacit convenant: misery we drown together in this secret pond In the middle of the woods. All our senses sharp. All gradiations of green circle the glade where clouds touch water, pink veils brought in by the wind. I hear yesteryear’s sounds: the song of redwing and hummingbird blending with ou high voices of boys and the diving, the breaking ans splashing of water. We looking for water turtles. Briefly eight again in the orphanage, but the screeching of the seagulls brings me back. Winter in Hoboken. Fog collars me now. Singularly touches me, mutes colors and sounds. People hurry by, numbed and lost deep in themselves. It is the restraint that strikes me here: of the light hardly showing color, of the pigeon on the branch in the mist, of nothing still stirring, of sound we gave a name but continues to stutter strangely in the ears and, if at last the sun breaks through, the shifting of shadow and light. It is my heart that is touched here. Years and years beyond words.