August: The Summer Garden

August: The Summer Garden
(click on photo to enlarge)
ummer-garden.html
"Only this allows itself to be kept unsaid:
how quiet. the grass is, and how good."

from NEW POEMS
by Rainer Maria Rilke

This week, an image called Summer
Garden. Also: a new translation
from the German.

(click on photo to enlarge)
ummer-garden.html	"Only this allows itself to be kept unsaid: how quiet. the grass is, and how good." from NEW POEMS by Rainer Maria Rilke This week, an image called Summer Garden. Also: a new translation from the German.

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

Irre im Garten

Dijon

Noch schließt die aufgegebene Kartause
sich um den Hof, als würde etwas heil.
Auch die sie jetzt bewohnen, haben Pause
und nehmen nicht am Leben draußen teil.

Was irgend kommen konnte, das verlief.
Nun gehn sie gerne mit bekannten Wegen,
und trennen sich und kommen sich entgegen,
als ob sie kreisten, willig, primitiv.

Zwar manche pflegen dort die Frühlingsbeete,
demütig, dürftig, hingekniet;
aber sie haben, wenn es keiner sieht,
eine verheimlichte, verdrehte

Gebärde für das zarte frühe Gras,
ein prüfendes, verschüchtertes Liebkosen:
denn das ist freundlich, und das Rot der Rosen
wird vielleicht drohend sein und Übermaß

und wird vielleicht schon wieder übersteigen,
was ihre Seele wiederkennt und weiß.
Dies aber lässt sich noch verschweigen:
wie gut das Gras ist und wie leis.

Rainer Maria Rilke (Paris 1907)
Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil

Garden of the Deranged

Dijon

The abandoned Monastery wraps around
its courtyard as if something were to be healed.
Those who live there now also are resting
and do not partake of life outside the walls.

Whatever could have come, surely has passed.
Now they like to walk well-worn paths,
and depart from and meet one another
as if they went round in rings, rough and willing.

Indeed, many there care for the beds of Spring,
humble, needy, kneeling down;
yet they posses, when no one is looking,
a secret concealed, contorted,

Gesture for the delicate, fresh grass,
a probing, hesitant caress;
For that is friendship, and the red of the roses
might threaten and become full of excess,

and would perhaps again transcend
what their souls once more recognize and know.
Only this allows itself to be kept unsaid:
how quiet. the grass is, and how good.

Rainer Maria Rilke (Paris 1907) (tr. Cliff Crego)
NEW POEMS, the other part

| see also the Rilke Posters |

| listen to other recordings in English and German of twelve poems from
The Book of Images at The Rilke Download Page (# Includes instructions) |

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

(9) June: Windflowers and the Poetry of Praise

(8) June: The Poetry of Images of Movement

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