Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs--
leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
-Rainer Maria Rilke, "Sunset"
(Thanks to Ana Maria for reminding me how much I love his poetry.)
2 comments:
Wow, Jai, that is a beautiful poem! Thanks for sharing it here.
Isn't it fantastic how the blogosphere has become such a great avenue of introducing and re-introducing literature? It's almost (but never quite good enough) like working down the hall from you again when could just talk about these things anytime! I miss that! (Absolutely no one here that can talk with me about literature quite like you can.)
I know. I miss our literary talks, too. And I miss doing literary research and taking literary classes. Sigh.... Isn't poetry wonderful?
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