Loam

We are made up of layers. 

Like this landscape that
reads like an old book.  

Crooked apple trees with names
reminding me of a song
that hasn’t echoed  
over these hills for a long time.

Rotting fruit in moist grass
where once ladders and grandfathers
climbed gnarled trunks.  

Eroded roads
like ingrained sorrow. 

We seek stray pebbles
rounded by warm waves
before the dawn of mankind  

finding chalk carcasses of creatures
that no longer exist. 

An imprint is all that remains.    

(c) Leen Raats

This poem is a love song about the area in Belgium where I live: Haspengouw. As a copywriter, I write a lot about this human-made landscape for local organizations. 

I am fascinated with the layers of history that can be seen in the landscape – if you know where to look. The original, Dutch version was nominated in a Belgian poetry contest. Years later, I translated the poem and had it published in the online ‘featured’ column of The Greyhound Journal, a literary magazine hailing from Hong Kong. They focus on historical fiction and poetry and publish work in both English and Mandarin.