without feet i still can follow you

extinguish my eyes, i still can see you,
close my ears, i can hear your footsteps fall,
and without feet i still can follow you,
and without voice i still can to you call.
break off my arms, and i can embrace you,
enfold you with my heart as with a hand.
hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
as flax ignites from a lit fire-brand—
and flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
through all the singing currents of my blood.

from rainer maria rilke's the book of pilgrimage
image - i honestly forget, some book cover i scanned....

(sounds like dirt)

this bitter earth
well, what fruit it bears

and if my life
is like the dust
that hides the glow of a rose

what good am i
heaven only knows

yes can be so cold
today you are young
too soon you are old
but while a voice within me cries
i'm sure someone may answer my call

and this bitter earth
may not be so bitter after all

what good is love
that no-one shares
and if my life is like the dust
that hides the glow of a rose
what good am i
heaven only knows

****

the glow of a rose
under so many lids
can be so cold

joy of being
what kind of beings are they then
o shooting star
of a rose
while a voice
or an unfinished song

i live my life in widening rings
earth and sky
for they were riverbeds once
and in their sweetness
wander anywhere
i cannot name it

chamber of my heart
weeping too, perhaps
always both
how he loved and yet
depths bend toward you
heavens of lavished stars

the face that is dissolved
empty space, alone
god leapt out
from a motionless cloud

empty at last
landscape of her sorrow
and when she weeps
oh heavy with weeping

(various roses from rainer maria collected while listening to the bitter earth)

would long ago have become a star

that is, in fact, what i meant to say when i wrote you that what surprises me most in each pastel is the unity of feeling in which the object is every time contained; a unique, tempestuous breath of feeling, a unique gesture of passion has, in one fell swoop, moved it close to the heart; it's a total manumission... and still it is you, oh lover of earth and sky, that i sing! still the strength of your arms and the ineffable glory they take in their obedience to your sovereign heart, to your glorious heart, to your new and ancient heart, to your spring and summer heart, to your heart which, did it not contain that dazzling season of blossoms, would long ago have become a star...

rainer maria rilke's letters to merline 1919-1922 - page 49

invisible birds (tiny feet extending)

what birds plunge through is not the intimate space in which you see all forms intensified. (out in the open, you would be denied your self, would disappear into that vastness.)
space reaches from us and construes the world: to know a tree, in its true element, throw inner space around it, from that pure abundance in you. surround it with restraint. it has no limits. not till it is held in your renouncing is it truly there.

rainer maria rilke - uncollected poems, 1922-1926 - translated by stephen mitchell
page 173