Anne Heegstra

I was born and raised in a village close to the Alde Feanen nature reserve. I loved to wander through the fields and sail the waters in a skiff. During my wanderings or as I lay in bed, I liked to make up whole stories and poems. Not many of them made it to paper and all of them have been lost. That only came years later. After a stroke it became difficult for me to turn the thoughts in my head into spoken words. Fortunately, I can still write them down on my computer. A couple of years ago I took a poetry course by Abe de Vries at Tresoar and recently I participated in a workshop by Arjan Hut.

silence

from branches, bare and naked
the misery drips like a heart’s beat
because their being has been
although they are still there

trampled children’s voices scream
in crunching cinders
and the barbed wire that cries
about lost lives

so many souls, so overwhelming
do their silent screams linger
forever in the desolated stillness
of Frauenlager Ravensbrück

© Anne Heegstra
Translation: Trevor M. Scarse