Trees
EN – A warmer air, longer days, louder birdsong: they speak of Spring but the real messengers of the new season are the trees. Previously dead looking woods start growing […]
Category Archives: Words and Pictures
Things I read and films I watch
Fireworks
EN – It is hard to know if this artwork depicts a war or a festival. It helps if you know a few more things about it. Like this: the […]
70 Years of Peace
EN – Last Friday the statement popped up once again during dinner with some friends. Surely, since World Wars I and II, we in Europe have come a long way. […]
Siegfried Lines
I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: When dawn was grey, I stood with the Dead. And my slow heart said: “you must kill, you must kill: Soldier, […]
Poetry and Banknotes
EN – “Have a close look at our ten dollar banknote, it’s written even there.” Indeed. Scribbled very small, flanked by some poppies, I can just barely read it: […]
Menin Gate at Midnight
EN – Some images make you stop in your tracks to take a better look. I could not just walk past this painting, of which I discovered a reproduction in […]
A (-) Hyphen
EN – A forest of arms as strong as tree trunks. Groping, searching fingers as their foliage. A baobab forest of human limbs in red brown clay – not by […]
To War
EN – Three men in the power of their lives were commissioned by our public network to walk along the Western Front, from Nieuwpoort at the BelgianCoast to Gallipoli in […]
The Survivors
EN – The woman in the center, black and sharp, stands alone and upright amidst the burden that is surrounding her. Behind her, to the left, the bent and weakened […]
Reading Max Deauville
EN – If you’re looking for a good book on the war in Belgium, you should try ‘Tot aan de IJzer’ (French: Jusqu’à l’Yser – not available in English) of […]
my great war / mijn groote oorlog 