A poem by the Dutch writer Jean-Pierre Rawie

DEATHBED

My Father’s dying; as I hold his hand,

I feel the bones protruding through his skin.

I search for words – speech has deserted him,

each breath is laboured in this final stand.

So I plump pillows, smooth the crumpled spread

at which a clutching hand now feebly grasps;

remain his child, though centuries should pass,

and as his child am ever in his debt.

The selfsame path we follow one by one,

the selfsame yardstick every time applies;

I sit here on the bed in which he lies

as he beside his father once sat down:

soon he’ll be gone and will have never known

how helplessly I’ve loved him as his son.

For other Rawie translations, go to here and here