July 20, 2011

On the Edge of Night

Violinist Seen from the Front

My room and the vastness around it,
awake in the oncoming night,
are one. I am a string
stretched taut
across resonating distances.

All things are the body of the violin,
filled with murmuring darkness.
There, grieving women lie down to dream.
There the resentments of generations
surrender to sleep...
A silver thread,
I reverberate:
then all that's underneath me
comes to life.

And what has lost its way
will, by my vibrant sounds,
be at last brought home
and allowed to fall endlessly
into the depthless source...

Book of Images

4 comments:

  1. Of all Rilke's stellar images of bringing the things of the world inside, I think this is the most breathlessly beautiful. I do not contain what lies underneath me in that hollow, but I play it. How does it sound through me? That is the transformation, the privilege we all live. One way or another.

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  2. i let out a big and hurried breath after i had read this. it's so very good that he holds the moment of insight like the taut string he refers to and then opens it out into the depthless source that is played on the silver thread. steven

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  3. Love both comments. An exquisite poem, prompting me to make music again...xxxj

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  4. I am going to lie down to dream, then.

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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!