Category Archives: Rilke’s Reality

The poem as prayer

Oh come and go

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Michaela

Oh come and go. You, almost a child still, complete for a moment the dance-move into the pure constellation of those dances in which dull orderly nature’s transiently overcome. Since she was stirred to total hearing only when Orpheus sang. … Continue reading →

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O long for the flame…

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Michaela

Will transformation. O long for the flame, where a Thing escapes you, splendid in change: that designing spirit, master of what is earth, loves only the turning-point in the form’s curve, What closes itself, to endure, already freezes: does it … Continue reading →

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Go deeply inside…

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Michaela

A reflection on a poem by Rilke In the past few weeks I have been reading Rainer Maria Rilke ( as you may very well have noticed by the choice of poems posted on this blog). Rilke was a serious … Continue reading →

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You don’t have to understand life

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Michaela

It is a special treat to listen to Rilke’s words. This is from a reading of the great Viennese actor Oskar Werner. Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen, dann wird es werden wie ein … Continue reading →

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Only in our doing can we grasp you.

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Michaela

Only in our doing can we grasp you. Only with our hands can we illumine you. The mind is but a visitor; it thinks us out of our world. Each mind fabricates itself. We sense it limits, for we have … Continue reading →

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Ah, not to be cut off

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Michaela

  Ah, not to be cut off, not through the slightest partition shut out from the law of the stars. The inner — what is it? if not the intensified sky, hurled through with birds and deep with the winds … Continue reading →

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The last house of this village

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Michaela

The last house of this village stands as alone as if it were the last house in the world. The road, that the little village cannot hold, moves on slowly out into the night. The little village is but a … Continue reading →

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I am too much alone in this world

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Michaela

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough to truly consecrate the hour. I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough to be to you just object and thing,  dark and smart. I want … Continue reading →

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The Panther

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Michaela

His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else.  It seems to him there are a thousand bars, and behinbd the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and … Continue reading →

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Be ahead of all parting

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Michaela

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it all will your heart … Continue reading →

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