even though the world keeps changing
quickly as cloud-shapes,
all things perfected fall
home to the age-old.
over the changing and passing,
wider and freer,
still lasts your leading-song,
god with the lyre.
not understood are the sufferings.
neither has love been learned,
and what removes us in death
is not unveiled.
only song over the land
hallows and celebrates.
by rainer maria rilke
"sonnets to orpheus"
translation by m.d. herter norton
***
i picked up rilke's "sonnets to orpheus" last week, in the hopes of finding a "new year" themed poem. number 19 seemed right to me, but i wanted to sit with it for a few days to see if its meaning would change or become even clearer.
today this leaves me a bit sadder than i want to be (or than maybe it should?) but i learned this morning from the foreword that rilke had spent the evening of new year's day reading about the death of his friends' young daughter and devoted a period of time ("a single breathless act of obedience"), between the 2nd and 5th of february, to writing what would become the first part of the sonnets (1- 26). it is said that not until the sonnets were completed did he perceive the girl's presence throughout. but in any case he had no doubt about a single word. he didn't change one...
so, i'm keeping it as my somewhat belated new year's offering to you.
have a wonderful year.
photo of forsyth, nyc © anita aguilar
