On the road, sick & weary
I sought sanctuary
In a monk's lonely cell on the mere
As I healed, night for night
He taught me to write
It was my thirtieth year
Those sigils from God
Found me eager and awed
With their promise of solace sublime
A reverent shiver --
Could language deliver
Us from unravelling time?
A fast-fading thought
With the quill can be caught
Gracefully, tenderly traced
By circles and lines
Magical signs
Saved from oblivion's embrace
That all that occurs
Dies as memory blurs
Seemed sacrilege, cruel and profane
To ward off negation
I'd copy creation
So God's word was not spoken in vain
A book was the portal:
In phrases immortal
My being I carefully penned
Every virtue, each sin
I recorded therein
But the human had come to an end
Silent and still
Nought but knowledge and will
To this place and this moment confined
My phrases are fetters
God's word merely letters
In a prison of paper and mind
In my book I abide
While souls slip by outside
And drift dreaming till Time cuts the thread
These lines are my cell
Between pages I dwell
And live for as long as I'm read
Sick of fleeting endeavour
I found forever
In a monk's cell on the mere
To stave off the night
I learned how to write
That was my thirtieth year
This is my thirtieth year
(Translation by Rafael Van Daele-Hunt)