Starting date
Tuesday 20th September – Thursday 22th September
Information about the walk
Node City Festival Events Tuesday the 20th of September 2022
5:30 PM Compassionate Bruges walk with live introduction by Louise D’Eer & Bert Quintiens
Start location: in front of the BMCC entrance: Beursplein 1, 8000 Bruges
This walk was created by the Bruges informal care network, a network of 10 local organizations supporting Bruges’ citizens on informal care, in collaboration with the End-of-Life Care research group. A wide-spread call, motivated the people of Bruges to write a poem about their experiences with informal care. A curated selection of these poems, are waiting to be discovered during the walk. Additionally, staff and students of the Municipal Academy of Bruges (Fine Arts & Audiovisual Arts) made a contribution by sharing some of their best work about serious on themes such as proximity and loss.
The result is a unique poetry and art walk that reveals many beautiful, historic locations in the center of Bruges.
The walk starts at the conference venue and ends in the city centre of Bruges – the ideal setting for a nice dinner at one of the many restaurants.
Throughout the conference week, you can undertake the Compassionate Bruges on your own initiative as well, at a time that suits you best.
Poems Translated in English
processing loss
takes time
we search for quick consolation
in comfort food
as if it works miracles
and will free us of all pains
yet: death
is seldom dressed festively
and also on the menu
at a funeral meal
there’s often written white on black
-in chalk-
rawfoods *
hvp
*In Dutch the words for raw and grief are phonetically the same: “griefmeal”
~
all should sweep
in front of their own doors
but I like to also sweep
-in rain and cold- in front of yours
and pick up the pieces of personality
that have slowly fallen apart
the small shards or flints
with your own scent
I store them inside on the cupboard
and hold you tight
hvp
~
Being a mother ( or a father)
You are humble, silent, and gentle
your whole life: forever caring
in a way only a mother can.
You are worried and concerned
Though we cannot notice your sorrows
being hidden secretly.
I cannot stop thinking about you
Bright light in my life
Mantle wrapped around me
Erik Depraetere
~
Bewilderment
Behold me. Being on my tiptoes that you cannot see,
in curved leaves, they crunch heavily in lightness,
tickling my bare toes, they make me laugh like before.
Beasts fill the emptiness in my head. Everything around me
Is fulfilled. Above me, in front of me, and behind me, there is nothing that corresponds
my intentions. Blueprint in a frame. The child,
who I don’t resemble, keeps me going, puffing. Born
in a life that has turned out differently, I will disappear one day,
in blue cauliflower leaves. But afterwards I will wake up
the way I had imagined, in white feathers, being completely myself.
Monique Bol
~
Butterflies
The sun’s rays caress your multicolored paper wings and you flutter lively through the azure blue sky.
You try to fly higher, again and again, for how not to cherish the warmth of the sun as that of friendship
You dance from flower to flower in a color fountain of music, among the dewdrops that hang like sparkling diamonds in the spider silk, until the sun disappears behind the horizon.
Because you’re alive!
Finally, after having been locked up for an eternity in a clammy shell of loneliness
Just this one moment. You would like to hold it in your hands like a precious treasure, because after the summer all of this will be over …
Fabienne Vandersteene
Caregivers
Empathic people filled with ideals.
A listening ear, eyes that say:
‘I am here for you like a bundle’.
They learned to help in thousandfold,
To be a guide through all suffering,
The ferryman on the final crossing.
Their skilled hands salve all those who suffer,
Powerlessly protecting as guardian angels.
How often do their eyes cry in silence.
Caring with love, over and over.
Lucie Putzeijs
~
Come on
Come one, Come on, let’s go
You there…
The ‘others’ here
Mix, mingle and have fun
You’re a bit different or a bit sick, but just as unique
Spread your wings…
Make yourself beautiful
Dance, sing, laugh and come out of your cage
Accompany each other, don’t avoid your limitations
Embracing you…
Carrying you
Away with that human ‘habitual compaining’
Enjoy and experience together, this temporary earthly life
A win/win…
You, me, we
Colourful diversity and happiness, free of charge
G. Vanpoucke
~
Concern
A hand, a smile, a word that is softly whispered
yesterday and today, tomorrow and the days after
prayer and driven by too little to inaudible applause
Rik Wintein
~
Cosmonaut
My cosmonaut. Lost in the here and now.
If only I had a time machine, I'd come visit you and we'd make coffee together. Then you'd be happy to see me and we'd play a game of Scrabble....
The disease made you fall into the black hole. Where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape from it.
Not even light.
And because no light or other information can escape from a black hole, it is unknown to me what exactly is happening to you.
There is only one entity. Spacetime, which contains all past, present and future events in our universe.
Your time intertwines like the letters in our game of Scrabble.
My cosmonaut. I know that your black hole will only get bigger. That you will be completely absorbed in it. Until you won't recognize me. And it becomes completely dark for you.
Relativism has now become impossible.
HELENE PONCELET
~
Father
In my hands
yours fragile and tender
skin wrinkling
stories about
damaged boys’ knees
the emaciation I see in the coat
together a coffee
a border of milk on the top of your lip
a consolation for the loss
every day a little bit
I kiss your head
a checkered shawl sleeps
around your thin neck
on the couch I lay you down
silently I hum a lullaby
you dream
a young foal in the grass
©heidibullynck
In memory of my mother’s deathbed
On a white bed
of motionless tranquility
does the mother lie still
the past erased
to a perfectly white sheet.
Her hand is reaching
to her husband
who remembers vividly
how warm her love was
before she disappeared
in an inevitable death.
Maurits De Coen
~
I would like to be alone, just for a bit
Alone on a desert island
Solitude is guarantee
It would take me too long
All by myself, no one to see
No, that’s not where I belong
It’d bore me, dead-quit, all too still
But how I long to be alone
Even if just for a moment
Just me being on my own
A glass of wine my attendant
Eyes closed, blissful stillness
Just you – not hers
But I know it’s all utopic dreams
For my head is full of it, it seems
Because even in my solitude
My thoughts keep wandering, remain attuned
How miserable I’d feel
Loneliness not for me- cold as steel
Staf Horemans
~
Touch
it rains and drizzles
my heart drowns
in the void
of your not-being
still my mind thinks
in words
of your language
unspoken
in your eyes
which yet don’t see
and then again,,
a sensible
softness
cloudlike
of
touch
LI
~
Yearning
Even if you don't notice it
the wind is different since yesterday
impetuous, is silently lost
between grass and withered branches
nobody sees, realizes the
silence that revolves around
and lingers before it falls
deep in the depths of restlessness
words don't hear that every language
dies in the heart that wants to live
and where every feeling
grounds in sand that scours
and ruthlessly blown into
unknown slots and
infinite plains
the pain pulls cracks in
soft grains of love
where the pain entangles
around loose threads of sorrow
the time, elapsed, broken
wait, alone and dim until
healing has dawned
lie