'we must die because we have known them'

.

(Papyrus Prisse.  From the sayings of Ptah-hotep, manuscript from ca. 2000 B.C.)

.

'We must die because we have known them.'  Die

of their smile's unsayable flower.  Die

of their delicate hands.  Die

of woman.

Let the young man sing of them, praise

these death-bringers, when they move through his heart-space,

high overhead.  From his blossoming breast

let him sing to them:

unattainable!  Ah, how distant they are.

Over the peaks

of his feeling, they float and pour down 

sweetly transfigured night into the abandoned

valley of his arms.  The wind

of their rising rustles in the leaves of his body.  His brooks run

sparkling into the distance.

But the grown man

shudders and is silent.  The man who 

has wandered pathless at night

in the mountain-range of his feelings:

is silent.

As the old sailor is silent,

and the terrors that he has endured

play inside him as though in quivering cages.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Uncollected Poems