The 2011 NFA Day on 9 June 2011 was not only an entertaining and interesting event, it was also a very festive one at which the NFA presented NIAS with a gift to mark NIAS's 40th anniversary.
The 2011 NFA Day featured Johan Heilbron’s Uhlenbeck Lecture “But What About the European Union of Scholars?”, and the NFA presented NIAS with a gift to mark NIAS’s 40th anniversary. The gift consisting of a wall painting of the poem @NIAS by Maria van Daalen, Writer-in-Residence 2009/10, painted by Hendrik Ribot on the west wall of the NIAS Conference Building.
@NIAS
Hoe de boomschaduwen over de grasmat
wandelen, rondom, onophoudelijk. Stil
staan als een beuk in het struikgewas. De wil
om te groeien is wet: van leven, maar wat
weten we van de vogels die tussen blad
en takken in ons nestelen? Is er pril
geluk dat nog uitgebroed moet? Het wil
hier aan de dag waar het strijklicht ons omvat.
Tussen ons allen vallen eierschalen
op de aarde. Het jaargetijde kennen
is zo onmogelijk als de kruin dragen:
voel je hoe ons hart buigt in de windvlagen?
Elke ochtend aan het hernieuwde wennen.
Doorstaan. Er is zwaar weer op til. Niet falen.
Maria van Daalen
Translation
@NIAS
How the tree-shadows cross the lawn
ambling, encircling, never stopping. Standing
still like a beech among bushes. The will
to grow is a Law: of living, but what
do we know of the birds that nestle between leaves
and branches within us? Is there tender
happiness ready to hatch? It strains
to emerge here where the sun’s slanting rays embrace us.
Between us eggshells drop
to the earth. To ken the seasons
is as impossible as bearing the crown:
do you feel our heart flexing with each gust of wind?
Getting used to the renewed every morning.
Endure. A storm is brewing. Do not fail.
Translation by Maria van Daalen and Petry A. Kievit-Tyson