No, my life is not this precipitous hour
through which you see me passing at a run.
I stand before my background like a tree.
Of all my many mouths I am but one,
and that which soonest chooses to be dumb.

I am the rest between two notes
which, struck together, sound discordantly,
because death’s note would claim a higher key.

But in the dark pause, trembling, the notes meet,
harmonious.

………………… And the song continues sweet.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours