Rilke and I compare notes once again

Reflections on Tragedy

Earth and sky
Height and depth
Destruction and desolation
Salvation and redemption

Though it's all in pieces
Though we do not see you
Though we do not understand you
Though we do not know you

Though it's all in pieces
We thank you for being there
We thank you for being sovereign
We thank you that you do know

Peace you bring (Help thou their loss)
Peace we need (Help thou my unbelief)


APN
Copyright 10/10/2005


Du, der du weist, und weites Wissen

You who know, and whose vast knowing
is born of poverty, abundance of poverty --

make it so the poor are no longer
despised and thrown away.

Look at them standing about --
like wildflowers, which have nowhere else to grow.


Rilke
Book III, 19


Nur numm sie wieder aus der Stadte Schuld

Only retrieve them from the cities' guilt,
where everything for them is anger and confusion,
and wounded patience sucks them dry.

Has the earth, then, no room for them?
Whom does the wind seek? For whom
is the wet glistening of streams?

Is there by the banks
of the pond's deep dreaming
nowhere they can see their faces reflected?

They need only, as a tree does,
a little space in which to grow.


Rilke,
Book III, 29