—R. M. Rilke (Duino Elegies, III)
Conversation
Though we've had to learn how flowering is fading, /
somewhere lions still roam, unaware, /
in their majesty, of any weakness.
—R. M. Rilke (Duino Elegies, IV)
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Continuously confronted by creation, we see there /
only a dimmed reflection of the free and open. /
Or some dumb animal, with its calm eyes, /
is seeing through and through us. /
That’s our Fate, to be possessed by the opposite, /
to see an inversion and nothing more.
(DE VIII)
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Threshold: what it means for two lovers
to be wearing down, imperceptibly, the ancient threshold of their door–
they too, after the many who came before them
and before those to come. . . . ., lightly.
(DE IX)
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Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future
grows any smaller . . . . . Superabundant being
wells up in my heart.