Mountain Spring Corn Lilies & Rilke's IMPERMANENCE

CLIFF CREGO | Mountain Spring Corn Lilies (Veratrum veridis (true black = roots)

Mountain Spring Corn Lilies (Veratrum viride) [ click photo for next . . . ]
(veratrum =- truly black (rhizomes) + viride = green (flowers)),
Mysterious deadly poisonous weedly circumpolar native; invades and
colonizes overgrazed land above 1300 m, both in Alps & N. America . . .
Eagle Cap Wilderness On the road in the American Northwest.

IMPERMANENCE—a late poem from
the German by Rainer Maria Rilke

Driftsand of the hours. Quietly disappearing,
continuously, even the happily consecrated design.
Life blows away, always: pillars already rise
without connection, carrying nothing but empty air.

And yet Decay: is it really more sad than the fountain's
fall back into the water's mirror, sparkled with shimmering?
We hold Change for ourselves between the teeth,
so that he may fully see us with his observing eyes.

Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Cliff Crego)

Vergänlichkeit

Flugsand der Stunden. Leise fortwährende Schwindung
auch noch des glücklich gesegneten Baus.
Leben weht immer. Schon ragen ohne Verbindung
die nicht mehr tragenden Säulen heraus.

Aber Verfall: ist er trauriger als der Fontäne
Rückkehr zum Spiegel, den sie mit Schimmer bestaubt?
Halten wir uns dem Wandel zwischen die Zähne,
daß er uns völlig begreift in sein schauendes Haupt.

| download mp3 Impermanence / Vergänglichkeit [4.1 Mb] |

| mouse over for slideshow controls >>> go to gallery top right >>> full screen bottom right |

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