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This poem is taken from PN Review 146, Volume 28 Number 6, July - August 2002.

Two Poems Sujata Bhatt

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
...


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