Rifbjerg RIP

my father watered the dead

my father watered the dead

with a grey watering can

I sat behind on the bike

he had his rake with him

but we borrowed the can

when it was hot

he hung up his jacket

the hydrant was further off

and had the same colour as the can

it whistled a little bit

while the water was turned on

his movements were controlled

and calm as if he was undertaking

something quite natural

which is how I experienced it

how else

while he pottered around fixing things

with his tall body

and the implements

I saw the water seeping through the soil

running down the cheeks

of my grandpa and grandma

and little uncle Otto

who died young of inflammation of the middle ear

strangest of all were the steel cones for

putting flowers in

we didn’t use them

but at the doctor’s and the hospital

I’d tried them in my ear

I don’t know

what you could see in there

but it scratched and hurt

nothing else linked me to uncle Otto

and my father would never

conceive of putting cut flowers

in tin fingerstalls for the dead

he planted watered and raked

and the sound of the rake in the gravel

was like the sound of the water

that ran and ran and gushed from

the can

and ran

like rain over all the dead in the ground