be ahead of all parting

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were

behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.

For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter

that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice - more gladly arise

into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.

Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,

be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be - and yet know the great void where all things begin,

the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,

so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb

creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,

joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke
The Sonnets to Orpheus, II,13

from The Enlightened Heart
an anthology of sacred poetry
edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell