Tuesday 13 January 2015

Tuesday Poem: "Sunset" by Rainer Maria Rilke



Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colours
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.



By Rainer Maria Rilke




For more about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, see:





3 comments:

  1. A wonderful poem--a great start for the new year.

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  2. Thanks, Harvey. I hope your 2015 has got off to a good start.

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  3. Oh yes. I love that last line. Beautiful to see this poem here, to open the year.

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