O Lacrimosa

I

Oh tear-filled figure who, like a sky held back,

grows heavy above the landscape of her sorrow.

And when she weeps, the gentle raindrops fall,

slanting upon the sand-bed of her heart.

O heavy with weeping. Scale to weigh all tears.

Who felt herself not sky, since she was shining

and sky exists only for clouds to form in.

How clear it is, how close, your land of sorrow,

beneath the stern sky's oneness. Like a face

that lies there, slowly waking up and thinking

horizontally, into endless depths.

II

It is nothing but a breath, the void.

And that green fulfillment

of blossoming trees: a breath.

We who are the breathed-upon, count

this slow breathing of earth,

whose hurry are we

III

Ah but the winters! The earth's mysterious

turning-within. Where around the dead

in the pure receding of sap,

boldness is gathered,

the boldness of future spring times.

Where imagination occurs

beneath what is rigid; where all the green

worn thin by the vast summers

again turns into a new

insight and the mirror of intuition;

where the flowers color

Wholly forgets that lingering of our eyes.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

On Death

You would know the secret of death.

but how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil

the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide

unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the Depth of your hopes and desires lies your

silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow

your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he

stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear

the mark of the king?

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into

the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its

restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God

unencumbered?

Only When you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top,

then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance

-Kahlil Gibran