Two Poems

You Spoke of Tolstoy

Paula Becker to Rainer Maria Rilke, September 1900
Worpswede

You spoke of Tolstoy
    and of Death.

Again. It was three in the morning -

You spoke of being able to die
    and wanting to die -

of knowing how to die.

How to accept Eternity.

What did you say?
        What did I say?

Again: Being able to die.
  Knowing how to die.

And the desire to sink back
            into Eternity.
Is it only
     the soul's desire?

There is Beauty
...