The poem
Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.
Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise into the seamless life proclaimed in your song. Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days, be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.
Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin, the infinite source of your own most intense vibration, so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.
To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums, joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.
My lame slightly different version: Be one step past all goodbyes, as if they were already spoken, like you parted with yet another winter; for there will be one winter, endlessly cold, that your triumphant heart will endure. Be stone-dead with Eurydice, rise then and praise and sing and be beyond pure quotidian's friend. Be there, with what vanishes, in the land of inclinations. Be a sounding glass, that shatters…
Read the whole commentMy lame slightly different version:
Be one step past all goodbyes, as if they were
already spoken, like you parted with yet another
winter; for there will be one winter, endlessly cold,
that your triumphant heart will endure.
Be stone-dead with Eurydice, rise then and praise
and sing and be beyond pure quotidian's friend.
Be there, with what vanishes, in the land of inclinations.
Be a sounding glass, that shatters as it rings.
Be here, but know too you are not here,
remember the boundless ground of your inner oscillations.
Be true to this way of being, this one and only time,
your first and final presence in the world.
Include yourself in all those used and disposed-of relations
that copious nature has given you.
Add all together, then graciously zero the sum.