By Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves fall, fall as if from far away,
like withered things from gardens deep in sky;
they fall with gestures of renunciation.

And through the night the heavy earth falls too,
down from the stars, into the loneliness.

And we all fall. This hand must fall.
Look everywhere: it is the lot of all.

Yet there is one who holds us as we fall
eternally in his hands’ tenderness.

Source: Rilke: Selected Poems, translated by C.F. MacIntyre
copied from inward/outward