Begraafplaatsen hebben iets magisch. Op begraafplaats Groenendaal in Orthen vind je een klein huisje temidden van alle graven. Daar brandt het licht en word je warm verwelkomd door vriendelijke vrijwilligers. Wat ooit een mortuarium was, is nu Theehuis Het Theelicht. Bijna alle dagen geopend. En wat mij overkwam was dat een verhalenverteller daar een mooi gedicht had achtergelaten, een gedicht in een walnoot. Het staat onder het filmpje.
LIFE IN A NOT-SHELL
There once was a nut
There wasn’t much he got
His world was a shell
In fact there’s no more to tell
He spent all his days
In the same boring ways
Not a new dance
Not a new chance
Not a thing more
Not a thing to explore
No story of a tree
“That’s just a story, you see”
His world was little and small
But he got used to it all
He felt safe and secure
In his world of “not”, so sure
He felt quite alone
Not like a nut but as a stone
And there began to raise some doubt
Is this what life is all about?
A knot appeared in his mind
What’s the nature of my kind?
And is there life outside the shell?
Should that be heaven or a hell?
I don’t know what is real
What I think or what I feel?
But I go nuts when I stay here
And an insight did appear:
A life like a not-thing
Is just not the thing
This is what it’s meant to be:
To be a tree or not te be
He then made a choice
He heard his own voice
He said “Well” and he said “Yes”
And then something cracked I guess
Whit a bit of fright
He turned to the light
There once was a not
Now he’s got the whole lot
He feels like a God
The “Yes” is the key
for becoming a tree
And the shell you can see
is all very empty.
Alje Bosma
www.de-waslijn.nl