Saturday, June 19, 2010

Sunday Sabbath Poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke

I've been derelict in my duties posting Sunday Sabbath poems -- not sure why, but there's been an absence for three or four weeks now. Hopefully that should be remedied for the rest of the summer, starting today. The poem below is (I believe) one of Rilke's less well known, and it is translated by Franz Wright in his Ill Lit.

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Pieta

By Rainer Maria Rilke

Now my anguish is complete. It is unspeakable,
it fills me. I am numb
like the stone's core.
I am hard, and know only one thing:
you grew big --
. . . and grew big,
in order to stand outside
my heart, an agony
bigger than it is capable of.
Now you're lying right across my lap,
now I can no longer give you
birth.

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