nothing, not hard work or watching Poem by Henk van der Waal

nothing, not hard work or watching
endless telly, can help you ward off death

yet you're obliged to set off into the no-man's-land of
the orphaned in search of what's germinating and binding,
quite simply because despite your cussedness and
your self-absorption you're ready to give in as soon as
death invites itself into what makes you live,

what you've got through your head since one departed has
abandoned you in the eternity of his absence and holds you prisoner in the secret of your fragility and has left you
uncertain about what's been appropriated from him to you

so that that you've become clasped to his soul have
become public as the image of his figure, as a venture
about his end, as a bubble in his being, in which function
your name's been hollowed out, your words dissected,
your resources have dwindled

so that you now burden the eyes of the terrified woman
and the shudder of the departed and must resort to the
motherly one who deigns without scruple or greed
to plait flowers in your fear, to kiss the future dead one
in your eyes and to enfold you in the plenty of

her lυxury

her lαugh

her lιght


From the series ‘The One Who Risks the Thither on You'