266
death
every
thing
changes

265
out of nowhere
it hits me again
my days are numbered

264
fading fresias
co-writing
our death poem

263
sign says
dead end
well then. . .

262
after the rain
kicking the bucket

261
old pond
Basho's frog and I
croaking

260
death
don't believe
everything you see

259
cold turkey
giving up
everything

258
rain all day
I can't find
my way home

257
sawdust
I was
that tree

256
unending rain
dying is
like that

255
distant train whistle
unable to tell whether
it's coming or going

254
that yellow bird returned
unable to shake the fact
my days are numbered

253
The poet Rilke has some extraordinary insights into the relationship between life and death. Here is what he observes in a letter to Nanny von Escher, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows in A Year with Rilke:

Two inner experiences were necessary for the creation of these books (The Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies). One is the increasingly conscious decision to hold life open to death. The other is the spiritual imperative to present, in this wider context, the transformations of love that are not possible in a narrower circle where Death is simply excluded as The Other.

Again, in Uncollected Poems, Rilke turns his poetic sights on death:

Somewhere the flower of farewell is blooming.
Endlessly it yields its pollen, which we breathe.
Even in the breeze of this beginning hour we breathe farewell.