Friday, May 15, 2009

Want the Change

A friend and I are having conversations these days that had not seemed possible a short while back. Surprises occur when things don't have to look the same.

Sonnets To Orpheus, Part Two, XII
By Rainer Maria Rilke

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
Where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

2 comments:

Ur-spo said...

I brought a book of Rilke to a winter holiday once.
I was so mesmerized by it I canceled all sorts of activities so I could stay home to read it. Chums were not pleased; but I recall this book more than the trip.

John said...

I love your story of the winter holiday. Thank you.

I think there are voices -- Rilke's is one of them -- that still us, puzzle us, urge us not to settle for sleep when we think our lives are about being awake.