Quiet friend who has come so far,feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XXIX
(translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
There is usually a poem here on Thursday morning, but the previous evening's Harvest Moon captured my heart and my rapt attention too. Rilke's sonnet has been a favorite of mine for - oh, let me think - fifty years or so.
3 comments:
Another amazing shot.....I love popping in here.
I love the sonnet, and do not believe I had read it before. I just recommended Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet to one of my daughter's friends, when I caught her reading a book of his poetry.
I just know I will want to come back to this and read it, again and again. Thank you for posting it!
Cate ~ This is the exact poem I need to read tonight. Perfect timing, your offering and my coming here to receive. Thanks.
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