Der Tod der Geliebten

Er wußte nur vom Tod was alle wissen:
daß er uns nimmt und in das Stumme stößt.
Als aber sie, nicht von ihm fortgerissen,
nein, leis aus seinen Augen ausgelöst,

hinüberglitt zu unbekannten Schatten,
und als er fühlte, dass sie drüben nun
wie einen Mond ihr Mädchenlächeln hatten
und ihre Weise wohlzutun:

da wurden ihm die Toten so bekannt,
als wäre er durch sie mit einem jeden
ganz nah verwandt; er ließ die andern reden

und glaubte nicht und nannte jenes Land
das gutgelegne, das immersüße-
Und tastete es ab für ihre Füße.

He only knew of death what all men say:

that those it takes it thrusts into dumb night.

When she herself, though - no, not snatched away,

but tenderly unloosened from his sight,

had glided over to the unknown shades,

and when he felt that he had now resigned

the moonlight of her laughter to their glades,

and all her ways of being kind:

then all at once he came to understand

the dead through her, and joined them in their walk,

kin to them all; he let the others talk,

and paid no heed to them; and called that land

the fortunately-placed, the ever-sweet. -

And groped out all its pathways for her feet.

René Karl Wilhelm 

Johann Josef Maria 

Rilke

And so what do I know of death? I’ve seen what it has left after it went through here. I heard about some things it did. I never saw it face to face. I never felt it grab me around the throat. But I know what it did to some people I know. I know what it did to me when it left with some people I know.

I don’t know… maybe it’s not such a big deal. I mean, you walk up to it, you walk through it, and then you aren’t in it, really, you just went through it and now you’re on the other side of it, and glad to be. I mean, people say, “In life he was sorrowful, in death he was peaceful.” I guess they mean when they see the body they look at how the body looks without the person in it, animating it, and they think that the person is somewhere “in death.” But no. They aren’t in death. They passed through it. They are on the other side of it. In that big and beautiful space, place, where it’s OK. Everything is OK now. Wow, I’m through it and over here now, they might be thinking.

Who knows? That’s the bourne from which no traveler has returned, right? Or have they? Have they?

Anyway, I’m not worried about it. I’m sorry for what death has done to some people. I mean took some away, left some here holding the bag, the bag of tears or regrets, or just a bag of cloudy days of wondering why.