[identity profile] duathir.livejournal.com
Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

by Rainer Maria Rilke
[identity profile] bobby1933.livejournal.com
Rainer Maria Rilke - A Walk
English version by Robert Bly
Original Language German


My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance--

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on,
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.


-- from Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Robert Bl
Poetry Chaikhana | Rainer Maria Rilke - A Walk
[identity profile] duathir.livejournal.com

Falconry

A prince survives by unseen acts.
At night the chief advisor knocked
at Frederick's workroom in the tower
and found him formulating facts
for treatises on wingèd power
while his penman turned out text.

It was in this aerie room
he'd walked all night with her on arm,
turbulent and barely fledged.
Whatever plans then sprang to mind,
whatever fondness deeply chimed
in recollection he would trash
and tend the frightened and impassioned
thing he wished to understand.
Every night he made a time
for nothing but the young unhandled
animal. It was her staring
inborn mind he'd worked to learn,

so he was lofted with her grace
when she, the bird that nobles praise,
thrown gleaming from his hand (her wingbeats raised
into the heartfelt morning air)
and diving like an angel struck the hern.

by Rainier Maria Rilke

Autumn

Nov. 9th, 2010 03:20 pm
[identity profile] manifestress.livejournal.com
Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.

--Ranier Maria Rilke (trans Bly)
[identity profile] radiohaiku.livejournal.com
I live my life in growing rings
that move out over the things around me.
Perhaps I’ll never complete the last,
but that’s what I mean to try.

I’m circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I’ve been circling for thousands of years;
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, /
a storm
or a great song.
[identity profile] hazelnut96.livejournal.com
Autumn by Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
[identity profile] juneflame.livejournal.com
Before Summer Rain

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

~Rainer Maria Rilke~
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
[identity profile] juneflame.livejournal.com
Autumn

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the
evening,
and wander the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

~Rainer Maria Rilke~
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
[identity profile] lucretius.livejournal.com
And it was almost a girl who, stepping from
this single harmony of song and lyre,
appeared to me through her diaphanous form
and made herself a bed inside my ear.

And slept in me. Her sleep was everything:
the awesome trees, the distances I had felt
so deeply that I could touch them, meadows in spring
all wonders that had ever seized my heart.

She slept the world. Singing god, how was that first
sleep so perfect that she had no desire
ever to wake? See: she arose and slept.

Where is her death now? Ah, will you discover
this theme before your song consumes itself?--
Where is she vanishing? . . . A girl, almost . . .

Sonnets to Orpheus, I, 2. Ranier Maria Rilke, Trans. Stephen Mitchell

rilke.

Jul. 14th, 2002 12:35 am
[identity profile] fototropical.livejournal.com
AUTUMN DAY

Lord: it is time. The summer was so immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials,
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full,
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

---------------

HERBSTTAG

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr gross.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren lass die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein,
gieb ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
drange sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte süsse in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blatter treiben.

--Ranier Maria Rilke

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