Day 16


Here is a one in Sonnet to Orpheus that Tom had marked out in our Rilke The Selected Poetry of ----- II, 14:


Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly,
to whom we lend fate from the very border of fate.
And if they are sad about how they wither and die,
perhaps it is our vocation to be their regret.


All things want to fly.  Only we are weighted down by desire,
caught in ourselves and enthralled with our heaviness.
Oh what consuming, negative teachers we are
for them, while childhood fills them with grace.


If someone were to fall into intimate slumber, and slept
deeply with Things--: how easily he would come 
to a different day, out of the mutual depth.


Or perhaps he would stay there; and they would blossom and praise their newest convert, who is now one like one of them,
all those silent companions in the wind of the meadows.


( i am finding notes and such that tell me my beloved had a private side - i suppose we all do.)