The Wanderer and the Poet

— J. Chr. de Vries

The man who sometimes, but more often not, answers to the name Ewald Raaden, walks along the shoreline. Every now and then he looks back, pondering over the trail his feet leave behind in the wet sand. ‘Is this trail a poem, or are poems always of a lasting nature,’ he thinks at one point. ‘I will present this question to the Poet.’


The Poet writes her poetry under the name of Hedi Sterc. Raaden is on his way to her, never having met her, nor ever seen a photo of her, but he had once heard her speak during an interview on the radio.

Raaden always travels on foot, for any vehicle would make him arrive at his destination before his soul would. And he does not want to stay anywhere soullessly. It will take a week to reach the Poet’s residence. This pleases him, as walking allows him to thoroughly ponder over his questions. One remark of the Poet in particular occupies his thoughts: in response to a question about the difference between a poem and a story, Sterc had said that a poem is a story without a plot. At least, that’s how he remembered her answer. Raaden watches as his tracks are swallowed by the sea.

He asks the Poet about the difference between poem and story. “Can’t one actually always discover a plot in a poem?”

“I said a determinate plot. Naturally, any reader can invent some plot, that I would call an indeterminate plot,” she replies.

‘In that case, the trail erased by the sea is a poem,’ Raaden thinks. But he keeps this thought to himself.


— J. Chr. de Vries, Loosduinen, February 29, 2024