June 16, 2011

See the Flowers

Flowers and Lovers

See the flowers, so faithful to Earth.
We know their fate because we share it.
Were they to grieve for their wilting,
that grief would be ours to feel.

There's a lightness in things. Only we move forever burdened,
pressing ourselves into everything, obsessed by weight.
How strange and devouring our ways must seem
to those for whom life is enough.

If you could enter their dreaming and dream with them deeply,
you would come back different to a different day,
moving so easily from that common depth.

Or maybe just stay there: they would bloom and welcome you,
all those brothers and sisters tossing in the meadows,
and you would be one of them.

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 14

4 comments:

  1. To go into the deeps, and feel lightly tossed. To bend like a flower in the wind. To stand like a cornstalk, be slow, and quiet. No drama. No entertainment, or performance. No angst. Just being. Tossed.

    So beautiful.

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  2. Such a lovely poem, one that resonates so deeply! We know that Rilke is right about this — in reality, there truly is a lightness to things — and yet "we move forever burdened, pressing ourselves into everything . . . " How much lovelier the world is when we "lighten up" and accept that our fate is that of the flowers. Yes, we will be be tossed about, but always in a blooming, colorful meadow.

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  3. Lovely poem !
    I do not believe flowers anticipate-do they feel the chemicals coursing through ? do they feel increase and decrease? We project onto them-
    they quicken and deflate us; and we allow it.
    Thanks.

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  4. A beautiful, if very free translation of the original. And i didn't know that Chagall painting. Thank u very much!

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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!