Rapture & Shadow ... Captured In Rilke & Grace

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Rapture & Shadow ..... Captured In Rilke & Grace*

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To Say Before Going to Sleep"I would like to sing someone to

sleep,have someone to sit by and be with.I would like to cradle you

and softly sing,be your companion while you sleep or wake.I would

like to be the only personin the house who knew the night outside was

cold.And would like to listen to youand outside to the world and to

the woods.The clocks are striking, calling to each other,and one can

see right to the edge of time.Outside the house a strange man is

afootand a strange dog barks, wakened from his sleep.Beyond that

there is silence.My eyes rest upon your face wide-open;and they hold

you gently, letting you gowhen something in the dark begins to

move."~ Rilke, translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album145/GraceOlivia_Shadows_Light

Slumber Song"Some day, if I should ever lose you,will you be able then

to go to sleepwithout me softly whispering above youlike night air

stirring in the linden tree?Without my waking here and watchingand

saying words as tender as eyelidsthat come to rest weightlessly upon

your breast,upon your sleeping limbs, upon your lips?Without my

touching you and leaving youalone with what is yours, like a summer

gardenthat is overflowing with massesof melissa and star-anise?"~

Rilke, translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/42_G

Solemn Hour"Whoever now weeps somewhere in the world,weeps without

reason in the world,weeps over me.Whoever now laughs somewhere in the

night,laughs without reason in the night,laughs at me.Whoever now

wanders somewhere in the world,wanders without reason out in the

world,wanders toward me.Whoever now dies somewhere in the world,dies

without reason in the world,looks at me."~ Rilke, translated by

Albert Ernest Flemming

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/43_G

Child in Red"Sometimes she walks through the village in herlittle red

dressall absorbed in restraining herself,and yet, despite herself,

she seems to moveaccording to the rhythm of her life to come.She runs

a bit, hesitates, stops,half-turns around...and, all while dreaming,

shakes her headfor or against.Then she dances a few stepsthat she

invents and forgets,no doubt finding out that lifemoves on too

fast.It's not so much that she steps outof the small body enclosing

her,but that all she carries in herselffrolics and ferments.It's this

dress that she'll rememberlater in a sweet surrender;when her whole

life is full of risks,the little red dress will always seem right."~

Rilke, translated by A. Poulin

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/28_G

World was in the face of the beloved"World was in the face of the

beloved -but suddenly it poured out and was gone:world is outside,

world can not be grasped.Why didn't I, from the full, beloved faceas

I raised it to my lips, why didn't I drinkworld, so near that I

couldn't almost taste it?Ah, I drank. Insatiably I drank.But I was

filled up also, with too muchworld, and, drinking, I myself ran

over."~ Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/41_G

Song of the Orphan"I am no one and never will be anyone,for I am far

too small to claim to be;not even later.Mothers and Fathers,take pity

on me.I fear it will not pay to raise me:I shall fall victim to the

mower's scythe.No one can find me useful now: I am too young,and

tomorrow will be too late.I only have one dress,worn thin and

faded,but it will last an eternityeven before God, perhaps.I only

have this whispy hair(that always remained the same)yet once was

someone's dearest love.Now he has nothing that he loves."~ Rilke,

translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/18_G

Little Tear-Vase"Other vessels hold wine, other vessels hold oilinside

the hollowed-out vault circumscribed by their clay.I, as smaller

measure, and as the slimmest of all,humbly hollow myself so that just

a few tears can fill me.Wine becomes richer, oil becomes clear, in its

vessel.What happens with tears? They made me blind in myglass,made me

heavy and made my curve iridescent,made me brittle, and left me empty

at last."~ Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album81/04_G

A Walk"My eyes already touch the sunny hill.going far ahead of the

road I have begun.So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;it has

inner light, even from a distance -and charges us, even if we do not

reach it,into something else, which, hardly sensing it,we already

are; a gesture waves us onanswering our own wave...but what we feel

is the wind in our faces."~ Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/27_G

Self-Portrait"The steadfastness of generations of nobilityshows in the

curving lines that form the eyebrows.And the blue eyes still show

traces of childhood fearsand of humility here and there, not of a

servant's,yet of one who serves obediantly, and of a woman.The mouth

formed as a mouth, large and accurate,not given to long phrases, but

to expresspersuasively what is right. The forehead without guileand

favoring the shadows of quiet downward gazing.This, as a coherent

whole, only casually observed;never as yet tried in suffering or

succeeding,held together for an enduring fulfillment,yet so as if for

times to come, out of these scattered things,something serious and

lasting were being planned."~ Rilke, translated by Albert Ernest

Flemming

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/07_G

Childhood"It would be good to give much thought beforeyou try to find

words for something so lost,for those long childhood afternoons you

knewthat vanished so completely - and why?We're still reminded:

sometimes by a rain,but we can no longer say what it means;life was

never again so filled with meeting,with reunion and with passing onas

back then, when nothing happened to usexcept what happens to things

and creatures:we lived their world as something human,and became

filled to the brim with figures.And became as lonely as a sheperdand

as overburdened by vast distances,and summoned and stirred as from

far away,and slowly, like a long new thread,introduced into that

picture-sequencewhere now having to go on bewilders us."~ Rilke,

translated by Edward Snow

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album133/01_G

You, you only, exist"You, you only, exist.We pass away, till at

last,our passing is so immensethat you arise: beautiful moment,in all

your suddenness,arising in love, or enchantedin the contraction of

work.To you I belong, however time maywear me away. From you to youI

go commanded. In betweenthe garland is hanging in chance; but if

youtake it up and up and up: look:all becomes festival!"~ Rilke,

translated by Stephen Mitchell

http://www.1heart.us/gallery/album141/Daisy_01

What Survives"Who says that all must vanish?Who knows, perhaps the

flightof the bird you wound remains,and perhaps flowers

survivecaresses in us, in their ground.It isn't the gesture that

lasts,but it dresses you again in goldarmor - from breast to knees

-and the battle was so purean Angel wears it after you."~ Rilke,

translated by A. Poulin

* Photography by Bob

Love & Peace,

Mazie