Amsterdam

Amsterdam: showcase of our planet,
our ideal future with your roots in the past:
not because of herring and Heineken, clogs and canals;
not because of your forward thinking these past decades
on drugs, sex, ageing and incarceration;
not because of your two languages,
Dutch for yourself and English for outsiders;
not because you are human-friendly, clean, walkable and bikeable
from Vondel Park to museums, books, the old town;
but because you know how to live safe, unconcerned,
as the sea rises up around you, centimeter by centimeter, year by year.

Robin Helweg-Larsen


If you have any thoughts on this poem, Robin Helweg-Larsen would be pleased to hear them.