Baffled by beauty

Ik maakte een bezadigde lentewandeling door de laantjes en dreven van mijn dorp, waar ik ook al 45 jaar geleden zoveel ronddoolde en eens te meer was ik verbluft door de schoonheid van sommige stukken van het dorp en het land eromheen, over andere stukken zullen we zedig zwijgen. Ik kon niet anders dan er een tekst over maken maar was van de eerste versie niet echt tevreden zodat er een tweede volgde, ik geef ze hier achtereen. Het refrein blijft hetzelfde.


I walked beneath the shelter of trees
and looked at all that had been
and fortunately still is
in this small inlet of bliss
we live in peace and harmony
we are sheltered and protected
as we dream in peace and harmony

      I was gladdened and soothed
      I was baffled by beauty
      by everything you did
      and by all the world hid
      it unmade me and made me
      feel baffled by beauty

I know there's all the TV series
full of violence and blood
I can't take it, it's too eerie
and I don't think that we should
see life just as calamity
we need shelter and protection
from hatred and mean enmity


       refr.



It can be the slant of the sunlight
or the deepest green of the hedges
the stars in heaven are just right
as recorded in Saint Peter's ledger
we live in this blessed small village
that for ages has never been pillaged
so we live and we love in the village


        refr.



Versie 2

This was my place and my ground
this was where it all began
here I got lost and was found
this is what I was and am

I write and rip my heart out
to get at some small truth
about this place, this hide-out
where I lived the rough, the smooth


      refr.

Sometimes I dream of dying blindly
in the future or the sunset
I would forget myself and kindly
treasure all the girls I've met

I'd add up all their virtues
and compare them to the village
where I grew up a lone youth
but our place was never pillaged

     refr.

Oh and all the splendour of the trees
the quiet beauty of the lanes
all the past and what it means
I love it but the words are vain

the tenderness, the taste of youth
the wonder of where we grew up
in landscapes deeper than the truth
oh come, and let me fill your cup

      refr.

12 en 13 juni 2011