Stayed in Silence*

*Note:

This poem was written for Evert van Imhoff. He was the director of the The Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). People may have thought that he was on the 'top' of the world with his position within the academic world in the Netherlands. However, he decided to take his own life in 2004....

It touched me deeply and it moved me to write this especially for him. I never knew him personally, but his story had made me reflect on life and ask this question: What is the real reason for living?
-----------------------------------------------------

Did bitterness fill your soul
When you tried to scream out loud
As you were struggling to leave this life
As you were in a deep down of dirty mud
Within a place where you could not breathe nor speak

Or you just stayed in silence
When you figured there was no reaching hands
Of anybody’s
Whom you expected was trying to grab you out of the presence
And laying you into the brigher future

Or you just stayed in silence
When in your mind stayed the question
'Was there a bright future?'
'Was there an end to your suffering,
And your suffocated life?'

And you left the question why
Which matters
Only to the ones that you left behind

Farewell, my life! you said
Farewell!

As there was never any virtue in it
As there was never any glimpse of smile in it
And at the last second of your life, I wonder
Did you ask yourself, why?

Or you just stayed in silence...


Groningen, 20 July 2004, 13:56

TO LIVE

After a while you learn
That being broken hearted
Does not mean losing faith
In love
That kisses, presents, flowers
Holding hands and romance
Are just like music, poems and dance
Wonderful parts of living
That you can always welcome and embrace

And you also learn
That to be a (hu)man does not mean to be a hero
With a shining armour
Riding a majestic white horse
That when the storm comes
You don’t have to keep your head up
Just to show the world that you are strong
Because the real courage is shown
When you admit that you are scared
And the real strength is proven
When you are not afraid to be called a child
By the people who witness your grieves and tears

As the most courageous act of King David
Is not his fight against Goliath
But his honest and genuine scream of“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”Which was chosen by the Messiah
To be spoken, to heal the wounded world

And you also learn
That the word ‘weak’ is uttered
By the people who are too afraid to face their own fears
That the word ‘loser’ is stated
By the ones who measure their lives only in failures and successes
That the word ‘defeat’ is used
By those who can only see the world as a battlefield

You learn that to grow
Is to learn to be true to your self, to God, and to others
To accept willingly and openly, bothYour tears and your laughter
Your joys and your sorrows
Your wisdom and your foolishness
Your fortitudes and your fears
Your hopes and your desperations
That they are simply just different colours
Of the same rainbow

You learn that to trust
Is to be open to the possibility of betrayal
And that to give all
Is to be ready not to receive anything back
That the word “Hosanna”
Is usually followed by the word “Crucify”

And in the end you really learn
That your heart is made of flesh and blood
Not of stone or metal
And that the only way to protect it
Is not by building a wall around
Because your heart’s true amazing power
Is only unleashed
When you let it bleed…

And then I believe,
I know, in this way
You learn, you learn, and you learn
TO LIVE….

Cikarang, 9 June 2008, 18:51

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