sometimes a great notion.

Duino Elegy #9 - Rainer Maria Rilke

Since this short span might
well be lived as lives the laurel,
deeper in its green than
all other green surrounding,
leaves, edged by wavelets,
smiling like the breeze-
then why, destiny overcome,
must we still be human
and long for further fate?

Not because happiness exists,
that apparent advantage
which barely presages loss.
Not out of curiosity,
nor as an exercise of
such a heart as likewise
in the laurel lies…
But because to be here
means so very much.
Because this fleeting sphere
appears to need us-
in some strange way
concerns us: we…
most fleeting of all.
Once and once only for
each thing-then no more.
For us as well. Once.
Then no more… ever.
But to have been as one,
though but the once,
with this world,
never can be undone.