Be ahead of all parting - Rilke

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.

For beneath winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice - more, gladly arise
into seamless life...
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a crystal cup that shatters as it rings.

Be. And know as well the need to not be;
know the great void where all things begin,

the infinite source of your most intense vibration,
so that you may give it your perfect assent
and come to completion now.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly...

Rainer Maria Rilke

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 13

I combined the translations of Stephen Mitchell,
Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

With thanks to Being Silently Drawn

~

Eurydice was Orpheus' wife, but is also
a reference to the underworld in Greek Mythology.