We, when we feel, evaporate.
We breathe ourselves out and gone.
Like the glow of an ember,
the fragrance we give off grows weaker.
One could well say to us,
“You have entered my blood,
this room, this springtime is full of you. . . .”
What use is that when he cannot hold us
and we disappear into him and around him?

— Rilke, From the Second Duino Elegy