"Oh, why have to be human,
and, shunning Destiny, long for our Fate?...
...But because being here is much, and because all this
that's here, so fleeting, seems to require us
and strangely concerns us. Us the most fleeting of all.
Just once, everything, only for once. Once and no more.
And we, too, once. And never again.
But this having been once on earth
--can it ever be canceled?" Rilke
"Death is the side of life turned away from us."
A mother is the first person with whom we are blessed to fall in love.
"Whatever else is unsure
in this stinking dunghill of a world
a mother's love is not." --James Joyce
Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,
to no longer use skills one had barely time to acquire;
not to observe roses and other things that promised
so much in terms of a human future, no longer
to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;
to even discard one's own name as easily as a child
abandons a broken toy.
Strange, not to desire to continue wishing one's wishes.
Strange to notice all that was related, fluttering
so loosely in space. And being dead is hard work
and full of retrieving before one can gradually feel a
trace of eternity. -Yes, but the liviing make
the mistake of drawing too sharp a distinction.
Angels (they say) are often unable to distinguish
between moving among the living or the dead.
The eternal torrent whirls all ages along with it,
through both realms forever, and their voices are lost in
its thunderous roar.
In Loving Memory of My Mom, My Secure Base,
Always in My Heart,
Eternally My Homestead
In the end the early departed have no longer
need of us. One is gently weaned from things
of this world as a child outgrows the need
of its mother's breast. But we who have need
of those great mysteries, we for whom grief is
so often the source of spiritual growth,
could we exist without them?
Is the legend vain that tells of music's beginning
in the midst of the mourning for Linos?
the daring first sounds of song piercing
the barren numbness, and how in that stunned space
an almost godlike youth suddenly left forever,
and the emptiness felt for the first time
those harmonious vibrations which now enrapture
and comfort and help us. First Elegy, R.M.Rilke
In Honor of My Dear Friend, Nancy, An Old Soul Who Died Too Young
You're Still You
Josh Groban, Reprise Records, 2001
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