Poet Bernard Dewulf passed away unexpectedly last week at the age of 61. On Thursday, friends, family and poetry-loving Antwerpers said goodbye in the Sint-Laurentiuskerk in Antwerp. during the farewell ceremony there was a long line in front of the church. Hundreds of people attended the farewell ceremony of the poet, who was also Antwerp’s city poet between 2012 and 2014. Among the also some well-known faces, such as Wim Opbrouck and Els Dottermans, who have screened with Dewulf in NT Gent. Ships of honor from Antwerp, Philip Heylen, was also present. He was Alderman for Culture in the years that Dewulf was city poet. And writer Kristien Hemmerechts, widow of that other great Flemish poet, Herman de Coninck, also came to say goodbye.

It was a form of farewell with friendship as the common thread throughout the ceremony. The farewell started with a poem, the same poem that Dewulf brought to Herman de Coninck’s funeral, almost 25 years ago.

The place

You don’t have to go alone to reach the place,

quitting at home, but also from ways of looking.

There’s nothing to see, and you have to see it

to leave everything as it is.

There is here. there is time

to have something the day after tomorrow.

You have to take care of that today.

For eternity.

What followed were readings of poems and columns by Dewulf by fellow poets and friends, because a writer can best be honored with his own texts. And also his son Elias, daughter Elisabeth and wife their beloved by reminiscing and thanking him for their time together. “I’m so glad you’re my daddy,” said Elisabeth. “I hope you can somehow see how much you love to be seen and will be seen forever.”

Bernard Dewulf finds his final resting place at the Schoonselhof, on the plaque of his poem The dead. It is the beginning of the poetry route of the cemetery with poems that he himself selected as the city poet of Antwerp.