After Liberation
Jakebus Cornelis Bloem
I
Beautiful and radiant, just like then, is the spring,
Cold of morning, but as the days open up
Further, the eternal light is a miracle
For those who have been saved.
In the transparent haze upon the fallow
Land plow once again the slow workhorses
As always, even as the near-by distances
Rumble with war.
To have experienced this, to say this
with body still whole, every time awakening again
To know: it is over, and now forever, the almost
Unbearable servitude—
Worth it it was, to have languished five years,
Now rising up, then giving in again, and not
One of the unborn shall ever fully grasp
Freedom in this way.
II
Regular measure of the returning seasons!
What is the heart that has ever feared,
Knowing spring would come to liberate it,
Radiant as it has ever been.
Ever in the present, indestructible
Life that flowers out above death,
And the smallest of complaints seems barely audible
Where the rye about the ruins grows.