The poem below is by Rainer Maria Rilke, who frequently explored concepts of mysticism, spirituality, grief, and mortality in his work. In this piece, as in the play, grief is a source of both challenge and transformation. The last two lines, which indicate a reciprocal relationship of some kind, call to mind the audience interaction with M and name moment at the very end of scene 4.1.

Rilke carried a belief in the creative and transforming powers of art throughout his life. He died of leukemia on December 29, 1926.

Pushing Through by Rainer Maria Rilke

It’s possible I am pushing through solid rock
in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;
I am such a long way in I see no way through,
and no space: everything is close to my face,
and everything close to my face is stone.

I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief
so this massive darkness makes me small.

You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:
then your great transforming will happen to me,
and my great grief cry will happen to you.

Poem translated by Robert Bly for Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (New York: Harper and Row, 1981)