No, my life is not this precipitous hour

No, my life is not this precipitous hour

through which you see me passing at a run.

I stand before my background like a tree.

Of all my many mouths I am but one,

and that which soonest chooses to be dumb.


I am the rest between two notes

which, struck together, sound discordantly,

because death’s note would claim a higher key.


But in the dark pause, trembling, the notes meet,

harmonious.


…And the song continues sweet.


– Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours