Favourite Forever: Rainer Maria Rilke


See the flowers
See the flowers, those, so true to the earth,
to whom we lend fate from the margin of fate –
But who knows! If they regret withering
it is for us to be their regret.
All would soar. Only we walk round complaining,
laying down a self from it all, delighted with weight:
O, to Things, what teachers we are, of wearing by taking,
while endless childhood succeeds in them.
Let someone fall into profound slumber, and sleep
deeply with Things – O how easily they’d come
different to a different day, from the mutual deep.
or perhaps remain: and flowers would bloom, and praise
their convert, one now like them
all those mute brothers and sisters, in the winds of the fields.

Buddha in Glory

Kernel of all kernels, heart of all hearts,
almond, that encloses itself and sweetens –
this universe as far as every star
is your ripening flesh: all hail.

Behold, you feel how nothing more clings to you:
your shell is in the unending,
and there the heavy juice halts and yearns.
And from beyond a brightness helps it,

for all above become your Suns,
full and glowing, turning round you.
But in you is already begun
what will outlast the Suns.


Rainer Maria Rilke
1875—1926

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