"i would describe myself..." - rilke

"I would describe myself..."
by Rainer Maria Rilke

I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

i live my life in growing orbits - rainer maria rilke

I live my life in growing orbits
by Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

"you, darkness..." - rainer maria rilke

"You, darkness..."
by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy)

You, darkness, of whom I am born --

I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illumines
and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations -- just as they are.

It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.

I believe in the night.

solitude - rainer maria rilke

Solitude
by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Edward Snow)

Solitude is like a rain.
It rises from the sea toward evening;
from plains, which are distant and remote,
it goes to the sky, which always has it.
And only then it falls from the sky on the city.

It rains down in the in-between hours,
when all the crooked streets turn toward morning,
and when the bodies, which found nothing,
leave each other feeling sad and disappointed;
and when the people, who hate each other,
have to sleep together in one bed:

then solitude flows with the rivers . . .

presentiment - rainer maria rilke

Presentiment
by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Edward Snow)

I am like a flag surrounded by distances.
I sense the winds that are coming, and must live them,
while the things down below don't yet stir:
the doors still close softly, and in the chimneys there's silence;
the windows don't tremble yet, and the dust is still calm.

Then I know the storms already and grow embroiled like the sea.
And spread myself out and plunge deep inside myself
and cast myself off and am entirely alone
in the great storm.

you who never arrived - rainer maria rilke

You Who Never Arrived
by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Stephen Mitchell)

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't know even what songs
would please you.  I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment.  All the immense
images in me-- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing.  An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image.  Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate in the evening...