Evening Love Song

Ornamental clouds
compose an evening love song;
a road leaves evasively.
The new moon begins

a new chapter of our nights,
of those frail nights
we stretch out and which mingle
with these black horizontals.

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Losing

Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting
still has a shape in the kingdom of transformation.
When something's let go of, it circles; and though we are
rarely the center
of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous
curve.

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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The Future

The future: time's excuse
to frighten us; too vast
a project, too large a morsel
for the heart's mouth.

Future, who won't wait for you?
Everyone is going there.
It suffices you to deepen
the absence that we are.

Translated by A. Poulin

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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For Hans Carossa

Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting
still has a shape in the kindgdom of transformation.
When something's let go of, it circles; and though we are
rarely the center
of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous
curve.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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My life in increasing circles is spun (Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen)

My life in increasing circles is spun,
encompassing newer things still.
I may not reach the last possible one
but try it I will.

Round God, ancient tower, I orbit and stalk
and circle a thousand years long;
and I know not if I be tempest or hawk
or a wonderful song.

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke from Das Stunden-Buch (20 September 1899), translated by Alan Marshfield
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Early Spring

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Interior Portrait

You don't survive in me
because of memories;
nor are you mine because
of a lovely longing's strength.

What does make you present
is the ardent detour
that a slow tenderness
traces in my blood.

I do not need
to see you appear;
being born sufficed for me
to lose you a little less.

Translated by A. Poulin

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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The Lovers

See how in their veins all becomes spirit:
into each other they mature and grow.
Like axles, their forms tremblingly orbit,
round which it whirls, bewitching and aglow.
Thirsters, and they receive drink,
watchers, and see: they receive sight.
Let them into one another sink
so as to endure each other outright.

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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I'm living my life in spiraling gyres

I'm living my life in spiraling gyres
that move o'er the choirs nearby.
I may never reach the top of the spires,
but still my resolve is to try.

I circle round God, the ancient expanse -
for thousands of years, pray to tell -
and still I don't know: what shall I be thence?
A falcon? A storm? A chorale?

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke from Das Stunden-Buch (20 September 1899), translated by Walter Aue
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Again and Again

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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