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La Mort

My grandmother passed away in 1986. I wanted to write a poem in her memory. Rather than writing about my grandmother I started thinking about death itself. I was reading a book about near death experiences and how people felt that these experiences could be a window to the after life. An alternate theory is that the visions seen are the results of a malfunctioning, anoxic brain. The poem is about this dichotomy. Some ideas started forming but it just didn't seem to work in English. Then I tried it in French and the rhymes and rhythms fell into place. I had used some French in poems before but this was my first poem entirely in French.

Published on

August 5, 2025

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Dormir sans le moindre rêve,
Un cul-de-sac ou un passage géant
Où l'âme bien fatigué achève
 
Sa retraite paradisiaque
Avec plaisirs aphrodisiaque
Et tous les voeux bien connus
Et même des désirs jamais sus?
 
Les gens qui meurent et vivent encore
Parlent d'une åme qui sort des reins,
Monte au-desus et cherche en vain
La mort attirante qu'elle adore.
 
Ont-il raison, ou ont-il tort?
Puis-je savoir avant la mort?
Is death nothing,
Sleeping without the slightest dream.
A cul-de-sac or a giant passage
Where the fatigued soul
 
Attain retirement in paradise
With aphrodisiac pleasures
And all the well known wishes
And even unimagined desires
 
The people who (almost) die and live again
Talk of a soul, that leaves the body,
Rises up and seeks in vain
Attractive death that they adore
 
Are they right or are they wrong?
Can I find out before I die?

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