some poetry
From Duino Elegies (1912-22) by Rainer Maria Rilke translated from the German by David Young (1978).
from the Seventh Elegy
There’s nowhere, my love
the world can exist
except within.
Our lives are used up
in transformations
and what’s outside us
always diminishing
vanishes.
Where a solid house
once stood
a wholly fictitious image
cuts in, just as if
the whole thing existed
completely in the brain.
The Zeitgeist creates
huge silos of power
that are as shapeless
as the training urge
he acquires from everything else.
He has forgotten the temples.
We are the only ones
who try surreptitiously
to save such squanderings
of the heart.
Yes, where one still stands
a thing that once was
prayed to, knelt to,
served - it reaches
just as it is
into the unseen world.
Many don’t notice
and miss the chance
to build it now
inside themselves
with pillars and statues
greater than ever!
Every heavy
turning back of the earth
has such disinherited ones
who possess
neither earlier things
nor what’s to come.
For what’s ahead
is distant for men.
They shouldn’t confuse us
it should confirm
our preserving a form
we still recognize:
This stood among men
at one time
stood in the midst of fate
of destructive fate
stood in the midst of not
knowing where to go
as if it existed
and bent the stars
down toward it
from the established heaven.
Angel!
I’m showing it to you
there it is!
let it stand
so that you see it
redeemed at last
upright.
Columns, pylons,
the Sphinx
the cathedral’s gray
determined thrust
from some fading
or unknown city.
Wasn’t this like a miracle?
Gaze at it, angel
it’s us
you mighty being
you tell them that we could
accomplish such things
my breath isn’t enough
for such celebration.
For it seems after all
that we haven’t neglected
the spaces
our generous portion
these spaces - ours
(How frighteningly vast
they must be
if thousands of years
of our feelings
have not overcrowded them.)
But a tower was great
wasn’t it?
Oh angel it was
it was great
even set next to you.
Chartres was great
and music reached
even higher
climbing beyond us.
Even a girl in love
alone at night
by her window
didn’t she reach to your knee?
Don’t think I’m wooing you!
Angel
even if I am
you won’t come
for my call
is always full of rising
you can’t move
against such a current
it’s just too strong.
My call is an outstretched arm
and its high, reaching
open hand
is always before you
open
incomprehensible being
wide open
to defend
to warn off.
