Ahead of All Parting : The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke is a quiet light. I believe, he realizes, in some measure, his oneness with God. His table of quietness absorbed me. Although, i may not know what Rilke was actually experiencing when he wrote, but what I feel is the vastness and inclusiveness of God, the patience of God, the love of God, the "closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet" of God.

One day, someone, who was familiar with Rilke, saw me reading this book, and mentioned that some of Rilkes books were read at funerals. I laughed; i hadnt heard that before. Yet, i can understand why this would be so. There is a sadness in his writings. But the death of which he speaks is not the kind of death that needs an undertaker; but the kind that says to "die daily" to our claims, suggestions, fixations, and opinions of "this world." It is when we die to universal beliefs that we become the quiet light of which Rilke speaks.