read a good poem: sonnets to orpheus, 19

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

read a good poem, and see a fine picture: todd hido, #6242

todd hido, #6242. via squarecylinder.com

today is "poem in your pocket" day--the academy of american poets is trying to spread the poetic love by offering a little template, with 25 selections that can be printed out for folks to either carry around for themselves, or share. of these, i like lost by sara teasdale...

there is a poem that i carry around, it was sent to me by my aunt several years ago. she knows too well my dreamy, broody side and during a particularly difficult period, i received in the mail a handwritten note from her, on hotel stationery:

be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.

do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.

and the point is to live everything.

live the questions now. perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it live along some distant days into the answers.

she came across that passage in "a year by the sea" by joan anderson, which she'd been reading during her vacation. it was written by rainer maria rilke ('letters to a young poet").

i read it from time to time, encouraged by the words, still amazed by the timeliness and thoughtfulness of her sending it. but that is just how she is...

***
i've linked to todd hido's work before--he is a newly discovered favorite photographer of mine, and i really love the shots through a wet, dirty windshield in "a road divided."

here is david m. roth's brief review of his recent show at the stephen wirtz gallery and many more shots from "a road divided" here, via americansuburbx.com.

enjoy.

read a good poem (what was i thinking?)

ever go back and read the dog-eared pages of a favorite book? there are times when i skim these marked pages, and can remember exactly why i did it: how i felt when i read a string of words...who or what i dreamed of when i read it...what secret thought of mine it proclaimed...

but then there are times, like tonight...(was looking for a poem to share and i pulled Sonnets to Orpheus, By Rainer Maria Rilke from my shelf. i'd only marked one page, the one with
sonnet 10:

You, who have never left my feeling,
I greet, antique sarcophagi,
whom the happy waters of Roman days
flow through as a wandering song.

Or those so open, like the eyes
of a happy awakening shepherd,
--full of stillness within and bee-balm--
whence flittered enchanted butterflies;

all those whom one wrests from doubt
I greet, the mouths once again opened
that already knew what silence means.

Do we know it, friends, do we not know it?
These two mold the hesitant hour
in the countenance of man)

and i wonder...wow...what was i thinking?
what was it i liked about this?
was there ever i time i really understood this?
(i must have been a lot smarter--and deeper--years ago...)

i do love the first line:
You, who have never left my feeling...

i also like:
full of stillness within and bee-balm
but as to the meaning? a mystery...

feel free to send me your thoughts.

i'm going to bed, will dream on it...