ongeroepen - (jellema iv)

ongeroepen -- not called. uncalled.

 en stil is het, hun leven, een kracht die werkt geluidloos in hen p342
(and quiet it is, their life, a strength that works soundless in them)

the jellema-poems
[i wish someone would translate them, it's not something i am capable of doing - but i'd so love to share them some more...]
in the sense uncalled, ongeroepen, in which everything is uncalled. ongeroepen is a collection of poems that is about - a few of them about someone that died. some also don't have that theme...

i don't know how to describe it (it - what, the reading, the poetry, the inbetween of them). will you just start somehow? i'm stumbling along and let that guide me. there is nothing more that one can do. i am still only just approaching it all. the poems read like they all have an additional layer of silence. over hun heen. but that also the silence - the silence is a prerequisite to read them. some certain frame of mind. meister eckhart sort of feel: without why. en toch (and yet). a sort of constantly operating on the borders of what can't be said and yet has to be said: wij zullen noemen wat wij zien p375: we ought/will name what we see ...  van wat wij denken dat er tastbaar is, ons beeld van heugenis, en wij zijn hier om het te noemen tot wij er niet meer zijn: of what we think that it is graspable, our image of remembrance and we are here in order to name it until we are not there anymore.
so, ongeroepen, uncalled, we call it, name it., name whatever there is to be named. what else can be ongeroepen....

[ jellema has read rilke too...the kalckreuth requiem which is probably more known than the one for paula modersohn-becker (which i prefer) it's end:

Die großen Worte aus den Zeiten, da 

Geschehn noch sichtbar war, sind nicht für uns. 

Wer spricht von Siegen? Überstehn ist alles. 

it's meaning; somewhat like this:

the big words - from times in which action was visible - are not for us.

who speaks about winning? to come through is everything.

jellema writes:

Wie spreekt van overwinnen? Nu en hier

herhalingen doorstaan van onbegonnen

verbeeldingskracht. De dood een slaap? Verzonnen.p380

somewhat like this:

who speaks about winning. now and here

to come through repetition of unfinished

intuition. Death a sleep? lost in thoughts. ]

i am very much intrigued by the next poem, because it - in some way - describes this problem of - self, the self behind words, concepts but also trying to reach to whatever kind of beyond - and that this kind of beyond too also always is ongeroepen. maybe it's not just our necessity of naming that is ongeroepen, - and maybe it is this obligation, we are there to name - the ongeroepen, everything that is uncalled.... and maybe uncalled for...
not that naming always brings things into existence... even and especially if it is not called, uncalled, ongeroepen, it does exist in its uncalled state. it maybe is independent of naming... ongeroepen it exists behind us, next to us, infront of us... its own sort of invisible independence.

now i've read a bit more - but nevertheless still only have a small understanding of what's going on - i am very much impressed how jellema approaches those so called borders of what can be said and of what can't be said. and that this is where all the interesting stuff happens. and he circles round this constantly. there is nothing of everthing i've read so far that lacks this reflecting on the ineffable... directly or indirectly... of how it escapes you, of how you sometimes get close, then you don't and all the life that meanwhile happens... very thoughtful. and despite that a lot of stuff escapes one is left with something though, although what that is is hard to put into words.... the things one has seen and thought on the way, the way perhaps that one needed to achieve a mental state, a mental position, a thought, a frame of mind, and that this way, the length of it, in a sense, also determines the strength of one's position, eliminates all superficiality.
...naturally of course i find that all very intriguing.


Er was voor hem geen plaats omdat begrijpen 
There was no space for him, because understanding
zijn plaats innam. Onzijdig. Het. Versperd
took his place. neuter. the. barred
door norm bleef hij hopeloos het onrijpe,
by norm he stayed hopelessly (& loyal to) the immature
hoge zelfbeeld trouw dat zijn afgerond werd.
high selfimage that being would be ended.
(this is very difficult to say in english.... i am not sure i can convey that correctly)

Maar woorden hielden hem, grens aan't vermoeden
but words held him, bordered to the suspicion
dat waar de geest naar grijpt daar achter ligt
that what the mind grasps for lies there behind (behind being)
als, meer dan vrijheid, 't onbegrensd behoede,
if, more than freedom, it held the unlimited,
het tot een beeld belijnde vergezicht.
the - like put into an image - farview

Staat daar de dood voor, dan is het te leven,
is death infront of it, then it is to live
en is het ogenblik, blind ondergaan,
and is the moment, blindely undergone
een opening waardoor terloops gedreven 
an opening through which we are casually driven
wij in het zicht van de gedachte staan.
and we stand in sight of the thought

't gedicht ontworpen uit toeval en wet
belicht de vorm van 't oneindig sonnet.
p287