POEM: You See, I Want A Lot from Rilke’s Book of Hours (as translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.You are not dead yet, it’s not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.
Rainer Maria Rilke wrote his Book of Hours (Das Stundenbuch) between 1899, when he was 23 years old, and 1903. The stunning beauty and poise of his words always quiets me, and I take slow, reflective time to read and re-read each one of them. He kind of hits me like Rumi, in some ways.
Here’s another, just to get your year started out right.
How Surely Gravity’s Law
How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.Each thing—
each stone, blossom, child—
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.So like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.
Poetry Friday bounds gracefully into 2010, hosted by my faux cousin Mary Lee at A Year of Reading. You’ll find a reliable schedule for PF posted there as well. More gorgeous Rilke can be enjoyed here with music and photographs. Happy Poetry Friday.
Hubba WHOA. "How Surely Gravity's Law" is new to me, though I adore Rilke. That just stopped me in my tracks.
Happy New Year! Thank you for posting these Rilke poems. I have to read his poems in small amounts, and perhaps should find A Year With Rilke, as it seems up my alley.
P.S. My word verifier is "creards" which sounds like a variety of Scottish biscuit. (I'm thinking of nairns.) If you made creards, what would they be like?
These are exquisite–knots of our own making, indeed! I've just begun to re-read Rilke's "Duino Elegies" and am savoring his words.
"Does Time, as it passes, really destroy? It may rip the fortress from its rock; but can this heart that belongs to God, be torn from Him by circumstance?
Are we as fearfully fragile as Fate would have us believe? Can we ever be severed from childhood's deep promise?
Ah, the knowledge of impermanence that haunts our days is their very fragrance.
We in our striving think we should last forever, but could we be used by the Divine if we were not ephemeral?'
Both my sister and I have just started reading A Year with Rilke (same translators), so this was just about perfect for me to come upon here, Tanita. I'm so eager to see what it will be like to read a little bit by the same poet every day all year long…
Happy New Year, friend…
Happy New Year!
Love these poems so much! Perfect inspiration for a new year. I am trying hard to trust my heaviness. Thanks for sharing these. 🙂