This morning was hospital day. This is when I make the mortgage and car payments for the doctors. A friend of mine always receives hugs when she meets with the nurses and doctors. I was greeted with a cheerful, “Good morning. Did you bring your wallet?” A hug would be nice, but, unlike my friend, I don’t exactly look like the huggable type. Clinics are a good place to settle back with a book or a new magazine. I find cell phones are a nuisance, an emblem of our time of distractions. My brain goes nowhere with them. I do my best to sneak out of the house without it, but Terri stands guard at the door with my phone in hand. “Don’t forget your phone,” she says. I leave it in the car to avoid checking the time while in the waiting room. There is a reason we are called patients. Waiting rooms require patience. The clock on the cell phone, constantly being glanced at, raises blood pressure due to becoming impatient. Clocks are absent from clinics and hospital rooms. They are only found in operating rooms so the surgeon can charge you by the hour. I have tried to explain this to Terri, but to no avail.
Today was made interesting by the four encounters that were laced together by humor, hope and determination. The first was with a man who spoke about the state of the nation, the crimes being committed by hackers, and his hopes for the future of the country. The second conversation was with a woman who is partially deaf. She recounted her determination to have a medical career despite the obstacles placed in front of her by professors. She spoke about the surgeon who encouraged her, and the support she received from her family. She finds her medical career deeply rewarding. This was followed by a conversation with a woman whom I jokingly referred to as the television character Dexter, the blood splatter expert who solves and commits homicides (I know about the show, but haven’t seen it) as she prepared to jab me with the needle for a blood draw. She drew enough blood to create a crime scene. I will spare you the morbid jokes we exchanged. The third conversation was with a 93 year old woman and her daughter. We were both having echocardiograms. Her eyes lit-up when I suggested they go to the A&W for a root beer float and hamburgers for lunch. She teasingly responded that her daughter is a vegetarian. I told her she could take her daughter to the grocery market for broccoli. She and her daughter laughed. Laughter is always a good thing while in a waiting room. A man using a walker nudged me as he passed. “A root beer float. Now that’s a good idea, but my wife and I prefer Vernor’s ginger ale ice cream floats.” I decided to stop at the Dairy Queen for a large orange cream drink. The A&W was out of the way. However, I had something else on my mind on the drive home.
I decided to share two poems with you for your weekend reading. The first is titled “Draft Three.” I wrote this as I was translating the Dutch poet Willem Kloos’s poem “De zee.” The second poem is a complete translation of “Landschap” by the Dutch poet Hendrik Marsman. Perhaps it was the orange cream drink that reminded me of The House of Orange⸺ the Netherlands and my Dutch heritage.
Draft Three
De zee is als mijn ziel, zoals mijn ziel, de oceaan,
Een ding van levende schoonheid, voor zichzelf een vreemdeling.
De zee
Willem Kloos (1859-1938)
Translations are by nature flawed.
Ink gleams faultless in intent,
Turning words inward
On themselves to be disassembled
From curving, dissolving lines,
Of confined ordered rhythms,
To distortions yielding to transformations,
Seemingly unchanged, crossed out,
Reformed, redrafted words folded
Into new bodies to form a pattern
Patternless as crazy tails of drunken
Kites looping, spinning, falling, rising,
Dancing free from closed to open
Over a windswept beach. Words,
Now my own, bearing measured witness
To another’s mystery, a memorial to
Our time-separated souls attempting
To make drama of a good and wonder-filled
Moment while knowing the letter kills
But the spirit gives life.
De zee is als mijn ziel, zoals mijn ziel, de oceaan,
Een ding van levende schoonheid, voor zichzelf een vreemdeling.
My soul is as the sea, for like my soul, the ocean
Is a thing of living beauty, and to itself a stranger.
For Arie (Al) Staal
Copyright © 2025 Charles van Heck
Landschap
In de weiden grazen
de vreedzame dieren
de reigers zieileen
over de blinkende meren,
de roerdompen staan
bij een donker plas;
en in de uiyerwaarden
galopperen de paarden
met golvende staarten
over golvend gras.
Hendrik. Marsman (1899-1940)
Landscape
In the meadows
the peaceful animals graze;
the heron sails
over shining lakes,
the bitterns stand
alongside a dark pool;
and in the floodplains
the horses gallop
with wavy tails
over wavering grass.
Copyright © 2025 Charles van Heck
Photographs: Copyright © 2025 Charles van Heck
Charles van Heck's Woodhull Journal 
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