BALLAD OF A DEAD MAN Poem by Serge Delaive

As I walked along the promontory
I noticed my father was standing there
at the same place as years before
and his ghost passed through me
while the raging sea was imploring
but it was so long ago now that I died
death inside death before and around
so long since I dragged my chains
over the ridge of this cliff beside the void
and that burden of the sky ever the same
weighing on my skeleton's frame
to drag me into the precipices which haunt me
when I struggle at daybreak against my belly
all those mornings ever the same
with death who takes me by the hand
me, such a fearful child
who wanders in the labyrinth
through a sad fairyland deep in his head
across the slanting sketch of glances
here on the bulge of chalky cliff
for all paths even when resting still
mean for me a complicated cliff
whose slope leads down to the sea
vast sheet billowing in the frowns of wind
cloth spread like a catafalque
even now above the chasms
and I was walking along the promontory
where my father had stood before me
all those mornings ever the same
when his ghost passed through me
at the moment of the tide's turning
which snatched the patient bodies in the ebb tide
I was kneeled there on the ground
I knew that soon my turn would come.