Showing posts with label Paula Modersohn-Becker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paula Modersohn-Becker. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

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.
.