Toon Hermans

There must be people who light suns
Before the world goes mad
People launching summer kites
When it’s icy winter
And those confetti sprinkled among the snowflakes

Those people should be there

There must be people selling ice creams at the cemetery exit
And playing harmonica on the debris

There must be people standing on their chairs
To hang stars in the fog
Who make spring from fallen leaves
And from fallen shadow light

There must be people who warm us
And who in a cloudless sky
Still being in the clouds
So high
They jump rope along the rainbow
If someone has said:
Come into my arms

That’s the kind of people I want to belong to:
Who keep dancing in the rain at the garden party
Even if the musicians have already gone home

There must be people who are on the gray asphalt
Painting ‘love’ in large white letters
People carving names in a tree full of ripe fruit
Because there are so many others fleeing from the butterflies
And throwing stones at the first spring blue
Because they are afraid of the flowers
And being afraid of I love you

Yes, there must be people with tears like silver beads
Who shine in the dark
And morning greetings
When daylight comes in on stocking feet

You know, there must be people blowing bubbles
And know of no time
Who marvel childishly
About something bursting with prettiness

They shout from the rooftops that there is love and wonder
When all those others shout: everything makes no sense
Then they keep shouting: no, the world is not going down
And they see in every end another new beginning

They are a little clown
First the heart and then the mind
And they write ‘i love you’ in the sand with their umbrella
Because they are so gigantically absorbed in life
And falling and falling and falling and rising

That’s the kind of people I want to belong to:
Who keep dancing in the rain at the garden party
Even if the musicians have already gone home
The music continues
The music
Goes
By