In de ardennen bouwen we een beddenkasteel,
onder een deken van dons en donder.
Met lakens erop en eraan.
Klokslag twaalf begint het kussenbal,
wanneer de zin het hoogst staat.
Alleen de best geklede poppen zijn uitgenodigd.
Hoogstwaarschijnlijk kropen wij tweetjes
diezelfde dag vroeg uit de dekens voor een
rondleiding door het dorp, met als gids de
tienjarige ik.
Op het einde van ons straatje staat een wit kasteel,
niet van stof maar van steen.
Voor het slapengaan
luister ik nog even naar het
golfspel van mijn kleedjes.
Een stevig briesje komt
mijn kamer binnen
door het open raam,
streelt vluchtig mijn kleedjes
alvorens door de kieren van de
slaapkamerdeur te vervliegen.
Sitting on the bed, your back to me, head slightly bowed, that I may brush and braid your hair.
One hand holds the hem of the hair, the other works the brush.
Both hands climb as the strokes grow longer, as the tangles are undone,
and brush and bare hand run through the hair.
Fingers gather, measure hair,
hook, pull and twist hair and hair.
weave, lock and lock, to make
and make these braids, which point
the direction of my going, of all our continuous going.
tracing small circles on the lines of my palm,
can you really read palms?
I ask, but I do not need the answer.
for this compassion is far more valuable than its analysis.
One day in the late 1840s, Princess Alexandra Amelie was making her way through
the corridors of the palace. She was walking sideways through doorways and labyrinthine hallways,
tiptoeing and carefully turning her body so that nothing would touch her. The Princess explained that
as a child, she had swallowed a full-sized grand piano made entirely of glass.
It now resided inside her—wholly intact—and would shatter with any sudden movement.
The princess was following in a long tradition of royals and nobles who believed that all or certain
parts of their bodies were made of clear, fragile glass.
Known as 'the glass delusion', this psychological malady, would become so well known that it
would be mentioned by Rene Descartes, Denis Diderot, ...
In the case of royals, believing one was glass could have been a way of expressing how vulnerable,
fragile and exposed they felt in their public positions. It was a way of expressing humanity,
sensitivity and perhaps a desire to be left alone.