#NPM2020 Day 12: The Book of Pilgrimage (excerpt), by Rainer Maria Rilke
I must open this by saying that if you are into Rilke at all you should definitely read the introduction to 1918’s Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke over on Wikisource. It’s long and informative and I discovered it while writing the foreword to today’s poem and I feel like I just ran a marathon.
That said — if you’re not into Rilke: 1) that’s okay; 2) the above “long and informative” link is probably not where you should start. Here’s what you need to know: Rainer Maria Rilke is a German poet who is one of the more popular poets of the 20th century. He writes a lot about myths, nature, religion, and a little about sage advice-giving via a series called Letters to a Young Poet.(Truly — something for everyone.) This poem in particular does a little combining of all of these. The last verse is one of my favorite pieces of poetry. I think about it probably once a week.
This is the oldest work I’m sharing this month (this poem in particular is included in a volume published in 1901). One happy result is that much of his work is publicly accessible (this poem is available via Google Books), so if you find that you.
excerpt (II, 22) from The Book of Pilgrimage, by Rainer Maria Rilke
(translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy)
You are the future,
the red sky before sunrise
over the fields of time.
You are the cock’s crow when night is done,
You are the dew and the bells of matins,
maiden, stranger, mother, death.
You create yourself in ever-changing shapes
that rise from the stuff of our days —
unsung, unmourned, undescribed,
like a forest we never knew.
You are the deep innerness of all things,
the last word that can never be spoken.
To each of us you reveal yourself differently:
to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.
