the polished surface of our being

.

.

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.

.