The Solitary Person
Rainer Maria Rilke
Among so many people cozy in their homes,
I am like a man who explores far-off oceans.
Days with full stomachs stand on their tables;
I see a distant land full of images.
I sense another world close to me,
perhaps no more lived in than the moon;
they, however, never let a feeling along,
and all the words they use are so worn.
The living things I brought back with me
hardly peep out, compared with all they own.
In their native country they were wild;
here they hold their breath from shame.
[ Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Robert Bly (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), 87.]
1 comment:
Lecture and reading at the Cy Twombly Muesum, December 8, 7 pm
they'll be discussing Twombly's use of Rainer Maria Rilke's poems in his paintings and a professor from Rice will be reading from a new translation of The Poetry of Rilke.
FYI...since you quote him so much; thought you might be interested.
www.artshound.com/event/detail/32851
kk
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