Die Langsamkeit des Sterbens or the death of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke

He rose aroused
by white and yellow roses
and went for those
he saw afar, from where
the broken wall
that somehow death imposes
in its deep set enclosure
hugged them all.

He singled out just one,
buried himself
in its deep heart space,
overcome by sorrow
of fleeting time,
he tried hard to ignore.
Instead he felt a shiver
to the core.

He hardly noticed
when he cut his finger
in a light gesture
brushing at a thorn.
A drop of blood
showed on his skin for seconds.
It was the moment
when his death was born.

He grew his death himself
a talent or a tumor,
as he came here
to realize this world,
to raise it from a numbness
to awareness.
and pain and sorrow
were but one thing more.

It took him months to die.
The poison crept
so very slowly
conquering cell by cell,
taking away
his dreams and hopes in sequence,
emptied his mind of light
as darkness fell.

He never though complained
sick in his room,
while rising shadows mingled
with the cold
and softly softly to his last desire
he ebbed away,
his stories still untold.

Life merged with death
as slowly as go colours
from red to yellow,
blue to dark, then black
He was a stranger
in a world of strangers
where nature kept its own
mystical track.

Roses had climbed his life
as if a trellis
shedding their petals
on his days foregone
until their scent
no longer could be noticed,
withdrawn by sleep
towards an endless dawn.