Esther Naomi Perquin – Upward


Former city poet and Poet Laureate Ester Naomi Perquin wrote the poem up in honor of the artwork Parabola Blues (2021) and its creator Madeleine Berkhemer (1973-2019).

up

Here, in a triumphant V, looking returns. The lively  
walk, the uncounted steps of the days before demolition;  
the lines of the bars are still in the sky.  
  
The shape turns with it, to pencil point, blade, injection needle. your look  
determines the image. Here is no view that you share, at most aspects  
of a language that no longer sounds: the rise and fall of  
looted days, stolen gold that glitters in the sunlight;  
from top to bottom you walk differently than  
up from the bottom.  
  
Here remains the step that is missing, the coincidence of the eye,  
the step that misses. Distance, too great to measure, 
is the smallest distance there is. 

 

Publication date: 14 / 12 / 2021