“poetry pinfold” by Bart Nooteboom


Rough and untended they roamed,
in herds, crossed the lines of my life,
trampled the tended
I had sunk my roots.

In my twenties they were sexy,
pranced, in heat and in rut,
neighed their nonsense,
their romance on the cheap.

Untidily lined, not properly broken in,
they stamped their stanzas
into disarray, unbehooved
in their unruly revelling.
Later, their will to power wilted
and they grazed more
attentively, chomped, smacked
their thoughts more carefully.

And now, grey in mane,
they home in, congregate,
rounded up, rubbed down,
aligned, the stockman tolerated.


Bart Nooteboom’s philosophy blog is at: http://philosophyonthemove.blogspot.nl. You can also find bundles of items at www.bartnooteboom.nl arranged by theme.

His book: ‘Uprooting economics; A manifesto for change’ was published by Edward Eklgar in December, 2019.