Between Breath and Breeze: A Son’s Vigil

Bilingual Elegy: Poems for My Father’s Passing

As I sat waking by my dying father’s bedside, these four lines came to me:

clad in compassion death arrived
a nebulous presence patient
soft as the whispered autumn breeze
twirling through semi-sheer curtains

I didn’t want to work them out just yet—being with my father was far more important—but also didn’t want to lose them. So I jotted them down quickly, knowing I’d come back to them later.

Eventually they grew into a poem. In Dutch, my native language. I read that poem at my father’s funeral.

But I wasn’t done with the poem just yet. I wanted an English version, too, so I went back to it and did it again. In English this time.

They’re two different poems, not just an original and a translation. Both are original works.

I’ll share the English poem first, and then—for those of you who understand Dutch—the Dutch one.

If you want to read the full text, please visit my blog, Writing a Bilingual Elegy.

Vigil

Schaduwspel

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