Death Experience: A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

Death Experience

A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

We know nothing of this going away, that
so excludes us. We have no grounds

for showing Death wonderment and love

or hate, since it wears a fantastic mask

of tragic lament that astonishingly disfigures.
Now the world is still full of roles which we play
as long as we make sure, that, like it or not,
Death plays, too, although he does not please us.

But when you left, a streak of reality broke
upon the stage through the very opening
where you vanished: Green, real green,
real sunshine, real forest.

We go on acting. Picking up gestures
now and then, and anxiously reciting
that which was difficult to learn; 

but you're far away,
removed out of our performance,

it sometimes overcomes us, like 

a knowledge of reality settling in. ,
so that for a while we only play at Life,
not thinking of any applause.


Rainer Maria Rilke

First Stanza of the Poem

Parting:

How I have felt that thing that's called 'to part',
and feel it still: a dark, invincible,
cruel something by which what was joined so well
is once more shown, held out, and torn apart.