Rainer Maria Rilke: "his eye still apt to belief"

The Child

The soles of his feet nearly new
and his eye still apt to belief,
still able to demand his unworn body
supply many a proof
of its desire to live—
how could one not perceive,
between these new eyelids,
the auxillary gleams
of a bright glaze that seems
the labor of a goldsmith?
Or that imperceptible border
where the skin goes thin,
transparent, to become a lip?
And this novel gap
between the spreading fingers
letting anything sift through, like sand and water....
And his words, revealed as in a card game
where it is too easy to win.



L'Enfant

Avoir encore les plantes des pieds à peu près neuves
et l'oeil à peine rusé,
et pouvoir demander à ce corps peu usé
les innombrables preuves
de son envie d'avenir.
Comment ne pas sentir
entre les neuves paupières
les clartés auxiliaires
de ce clair émail beau
qui semble sortir des mains d'un orfèvre?
Ou cet imperceptible bord où la peau
s'aminicit, transparente, pour devenir lèvre?
Et cet espace inédit entre les doigts qui s'écartent,
laissant tout écouler comme sable et eau...
Et ces mots, montrés comme un jeu de cartes,
où l'on gagne trop tôt.

Ludovico Ariosto: "Do you even know yourself?"

Philippa's Tomb

A weighty slab of marble keeps Philippa trapped.

With less, her husband feared, she might've escaped.

*

Who was I, you ask? Well, Philippa was my name.

No, no more questions. I'll not play that game.

Let's say, “A woman, I found no womanly thing alien,”

and hope you'll take that in the good sense I mean.

Something personal? Do you even know yourself?

Now, mind your own business and bugger off.

[ Epigram: Marmoris ingenti sub pondere clausa ]

Marmoris ingenti sub pondere clausa Philippa est:
Cavit vir tandem ne ulterius fugeret.

*

Quaeris quae fuerim? Me scito fuisse Philippam:

Plura rogas? Nolo plura loqui, nisi quod

Nil alienum a me mulier muliebre putavi:

Hoc, heus! in partem accipe, quaeso, bonam.

Quid tibi vis? An me interius vis nosse? Quid ipsum

Ten noscis? Prior haec sit tibi cura, et abi.

Dorothee Mörike: "something is different"

checklist for a spring idyll, twentytwenty

the pasqueflower, caressed

the frenetic blows of the woodpecker, listened to

the lark's panicked whir, followed

the wood anemone's indifference, admired

the dark green of moss, inhaled

but something is different

than in other years

not one plane's contrail crosses

the hawk's hovering

checkliste frühlingsidyll zwanzigzwanzig

die küchenschelle gestreichelt
dem frenetischen klopfen des spechts gelauscht
den panischen schwirrflug der lerche verfolgt
die unbekümmertheit des buschwindröschens bewundert
das dunkel grün des mooses eingesogen

und irgendetwas ist anders
als all die jahre

kein kondensstreifen kreuzt
das schweben des milans

Rainer Maria Rilke: "too laden in rose-self"

Summer Day

Its windows shuttered, the white house

is closed like a mouth after a cry.

On the sundial, the peacock drowses,

effacing hours under noonday sky.

You sense roses will shed petals tonight,

too laden in rose-self, with painful sighs.

My child, my friend, take flight –

this life reveals its truth in all that dies.

Jour d'Été

La maison blanche, les persiennes closes,
s'est fermée comme une bouche après un cri;
sur le cadran le paon se repose,
effaçant toutes les heures du midi.

On sent: Ce soir s'efeuilleront les roses,
trop pleines d'elles mêmes, en douces agonies.
Ô mon enfant, ô mon amie, vas-y.
La vie s'éclaire dans la mort des choses.

Lucian Mănăilescu: "a game of quanta and atoms"

Everything Transforms

It's all a game of quanta and atoms –

we know but can never really explain,

because the waters, flowing, change to clouds,

and mountains, waiting, weather to a plain.

Butterflies perish in heaps of colors,

the stars decay to a dust of starlight,

people burst into flames of snowfall,

blanketing an unreal world in white.

But the very dream that fashions empires,

the very thought that struck the tongue dumb,

how we felt and what we were – no one knows,

nor can imagine what change will come.

Totul se transformă

E-un joc de molecule şi atomi

pe care-l ştim, dar nu-l putem pricepe,

căci apele, curgând, se schimbă-n nori

iar munţii, aşteptând, se schimbă-n stepe.

Pier fluturii-n noianul de culori,

stele decad în pulberea astrală,

oamenii ard în flăcări de ninsori

înzăpezind o lume ireală.

Şi numai visul, plăsmuind imperii,

şi numai gândul, ce-a murit pe limbă,

şi numai c-am simţit şi că am fost

nu ştim, nu bănuim, în ce se schimbă.

Albert Dreux: "the gyring birds of desire"

Refinement

When, the senses quelled and eyes half-closed,
We feel, beloved, a gentle, animal
Calm descend, a snow of ash, invincible
On the bright, impassioned fire that blazed,

We are content. Without regret or trepidation
The heart drowses peacefully; thoughtless,
We dream blurred dreams of expended excess
And drift toward a vague oblivion.

– But when we have resisted such frenzies
And have held back from quaffing to its lees
The entire, enervating cup of pleasure,

What joy to have still the spur of longing
And to suffer, forever, like moths thronging
Our darkness, all the gyring birds of desire.

Raffinement

Quand, les sens apaisés et les yeux demi-clos,
Nous sentons, ô très chère, invincible descendre
Le beau calme animal neigeant comme une cendre
Sur le feu clair, ardent, qui flamboyait tantôt,

On est heureux! Le cœur s’endort, tout doucement,
Sans regret, sans frisson; et l’âme sans pensée,
On songe vaguement aux forces dépensées,
Et l’on flotte en un vague anéantissement.

Mais, lorsque nous avons refusé la folie
Et que nous n’avons pas voulu jusqu’à la lie
Boire la coupe entière et fade du plaisir,

Quel bonheur de garder l’aiguillon dans nos veines
Et de sentir toujours, comme un vol de phalène,
Planer autour de nous les oiseaux du désir.