Eclipse Poem by Stefan Hertmans

For the first time in a year and a half, in the dead
Of a night of the moon's last quarter, he's asleep
On his back. I see his features that are mine.
And odder still, he's growing. His mouth, ajar
For air to elbow in and out, seems to be
Wanting to say something that doesn't come.
You'd think that verses formed there in the days gone by,
That lines emerged which left the Elders speechless
And academies in despair at a past reduced to ashes.
But he's asleep, and feverish. I bear the blame for
This breath, without diversion or revenge. He's breathing; something
Makes the stairs creak and the footstep flowering in the grain
Of the wood. His mother was promised this once.
He doesn't sidestep being given in, the
modest fact that someone, tired of waiting, turns the lights off,
lays a finger in the palm of his hand. That fits perfectly.
And all breathing, like a column, towers above a face
Raised for the first time from sleep entirely.

Translation: Gregory Ball