Saturday, March 23, 2013

Before Summer Rain by Rainer Maria Rilke



"When the chickens or dogs wander away, people know enough to search for them, but when the heart wanders away, they don't.

The Way of Learning is nothing other than this: searching for the heart that has wandered away." ~Confucious

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BEFORE SUMMER RAIN
By Rainer Maria Rilke
From:  "The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke", page 35
 
Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.
 
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       "Accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields...." ~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923
 
* * * * *
 
"Isn't it time to turn your heart into a temple of fire?" ~Rumi

* * * * *
 
"The heart never becomes wrinkled." ~Marie de Rabutin-Chantal
 
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6 comments:

quid said...

But I was never afraid in those childhood hours! Somehow, the world seems like it was a better place then. However, Rilke is always welcome. You turned me on to Rilke, these many years ago. We've known each other more than a decade. Does that seem possible?

quid

Marion said...

Quid, I was always afraid after my father died when I was 6. Fear seems to have followed me the rest of my life.

TEN years!!! OMG, that seems impossible. How time flies when you're having fun. (Snicker). I was thinking about the 'Barefoot Princesses' just yesterday. I still keep in touch with several of the girls. Thanks for stopping by. xo

Anonymous said...

Squirrel sit on rock and crack nut.
Man sit on crack and rock nut.
- Confucious

Marion said...

Trav, methinks your quote is by Billy Bob Confucious of Red Dirt, Alabama. Tee-hee. xo

Wine and Words said...

So true about the heart wandering. Even my own heart made incremental shifts away from soul. Learn I did. I cannot survive with just the one or the other. Search on.

erin said...

i can't say why exactly but i hear bly's prose poems reflected here, or perhaps who i imagine to be bly himself, scraping back his chair before the rain. (i'll take a look to see why...) oh. does it speak to this rilke poem? well, i think all poems must speak with one another.

august rain

(sorry, i can't find it written out anywhere but in this book i hold:) you can read it here if you don't already know it, but marion, i think you've encountered just about every poem at least once:) http://books.google.ca/books?id=DuwaQnycaDoC&pg=PT116&lpg=PT116&dq=august+rain+robert+bly&source=bl&ots=zLlNzrEc_y&sig=opCrc-87Btbt760H8QIsiIoZJ3o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ob5RUdCUG7ShyAGhsoC4AQ&sqi=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA)

xo
erin