RILKE | December: Winter Ribbons

Winter Ribbons "...and to whom finally do we proffer these?

But to the strangers, who misunderstood us,
to the others, who we never found,
to those servants, who bound us,
winds of spring, that with this vanished,
and to the silence, the one who has lost."


from the Uncollected Poems
of Rainer Maria Rilke 


This week, an image of Ribbons
in Winter.
 
Also: three new
translations from the German.








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The guest poems for this week three new English translations from the work of the German language 
poet,
Rainer Maria Rilke (from the Rilke website, a concise hyperlinked biography).


Rilke left a large body of uncollected work which includes some 500 poems.
The three works featured here are among them:





Hinter den schuld-losen Bäumen
langsam bildet die alte Verhängnis
ihr stummes Gesicht aus.
Falten ziehen dorthin . . .
Was ein Vogel hier aufkreischt,
springt dort als Weh-zug
ab an dem harten Wahrsagermund.

O und die bald Liebenden
lächeln sich an, noch abschiedlos,
unter und auf über ihnen geht
sternbildhaft ihr Schicksal,
nächtig begeistert.
Noch zu erleben nicht reicht es ihnen,
noch wohnt es
schwebend im himmlischen Gang,
eine lichte Figur.

(Heiligemdamm,
August 1913)
Behind the innocent trees
old Fate slowly gives form
to her mute face.
Wrinkles are drawn there . . .
What is here the shriek of birds
there springs forth as the draft of pain
on the hardened soothsayer's lips.

O and the lovers soon-to-be
smile at each other, still departureless,
their destiny rising and falling
upon them like clusters of stars,
enchanted during the night.
Still not reaching close enough for them to know,
still living
in its spare figure
drifting in heavenly strides.





Einmal nahm ich zwischen meine Hände
dein Gesicht. Der Mond fiel darauf ein.
Unbegreiflichster der Gegenstände
unter überfließendem Gewein.

Wie ein williges, das still besteht,
beinah war es wie ein Ding zu halten.
Und doch war kein Wesen in der kalten
Nacht, das mir unendlicher entgeht.

O da strömen wir zur diesen Stellen,
drängen in die kleine Oberfläche
alle Wellen unseres Herzens,
Lust und Schwäche,
und wem halten wir sie schließlich hin?

Ach dem Fremden, der uns mißverstanden,
ach dem andern, den wir niemals fanden,
denen Knechten, die uns banden,
Frühlingwinden, die damit entschwanden,
und der Stille, der Verliererin.

(Paris,
1913)
And once I took between my two hands
your face. The moon's light fell upon it.
Most unfathomable of all objects
beneath the overflowing of tears.

Like one who is willing, whose hushed term,
almost was like a thing to be held.
And yet there was no being in the cold
night that more endlessly escaped me.

O there we flow smoothly to these places,
penetrating into the small surfaces
all the waves of our hearts,
pleasure and weakness,
and to whom finally do we proffer these?

But to the strangers, who misunderstood us,
to the others, who we never found,
to those servants, who bound us,
winds of spring, that with this vanished,
and to the silence, the one who has lost.





Spaziergang

Schon ist mein Blick am Hügel, dem besonnten,
dem Wege, den ich kaum begann, voran.
So fasst uns das, was wir nicht fassen konnten,
voller Erscheinung, aus der Ferne an—

und wandelt uns, auch wenn wirs nicht erreichen,
in jenes, das wir, kaum es ahnend, sind;
ein Zeichen weht, erwidernd unserm Zeichen . . .
Wir aber spüren nur den Gegenwind.


(Muzot, Switzerland -- March, 1924)
A Walk

Already my gaze is upon the hill, the sunny one,
at the end of the path which I've only just begun.
So we are grasped, by that which we could not grasp,
at such great distance, so fully manifest—

and it changes us, even when we do not reach it,
into something that, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a sign appears, echoing our own sign . . .
But what we sense is the falling winds.

(all tr. Cliff Crego)










See also other recent additions of new English translations of
Rilke's poetry, together with
featured photographs at:

(20) December: Clear Water, Smooth Granite and the Flow of Compassion

(19) November: More Figures from Interior Space





See also a selection of recent Picture/Poem "Rilke in translation" features at the Rilke Archive.
See also another website
by Cliff Crego:
The Poetry of
Rainer Maria Rilke
a presentation of 80 of the
best poems of Rilke in
both German and
new English translations
:
biography, links, posters


See
also:

new
"Straight roads,
Slow rivers,
Deep clay."
A collection of contemporary Dutch poetry
in English translation, with commentary
and photographs
by Cliff Crego


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(created:
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