.
.
I have my dead, and I have let them go,
and was amazed to see them so contented,
so soon at home in being dead, so cheerful,
so unlike their reputation. Only you
return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock
against something, so that the sound reveals
your presence. Oh don't take from me what I
am slowly learning. I'm sure you have gone astray
it you are moved to homesickness for anything
in this dimension. We transform these Things;
they aren't real, they are only the reflections
upon the polished surface of our being.
.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
excerpt from "Requiem," written on the occasion of the death
of his friend Paula Modersohn-Becker. This is a portrait she painted of Rilke.
.
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