Rilke (1875-1926) wrote his BOOK OF HOURS between the years 1899-1903, inspired by the spirituality he encountered while visiting Russia. He tells us things of the world have souls, giving us an opportunity for dialogue. It is possible to read this collection both as "cycle of love poems," and as "intensely inward conversations with God" (p. 24). Rilke portrays God "not with lapis or gold, but with colors made of apple bark" (I, 60). He observes that God moves quietly through our lives: "Of all who move through the quiet houses,/ you are the quietest" (I, 45). God runs "like a herd of luminous deer/ and I am dark," Rilke writes, "I am a forest" (I, 45).
"Things" teach us "to fall,/ patiently to trust our heaviness./ Even a bird has to do that/ before he can fly" (II, 16). "Now you must go out into your heart," Rilke writes in another poem, "as onto a vast plain" (II, 2). These are poems that will quietly touch your soul; they will leave you wanting to spend more than a few HOURS with Rilke. Another recommended favorite is Mitchell's SELECTED POETRY OF RAINER MARIA RILKE (1989).
G. Merritt
One can approach this translation as a purist, eyeing the metre like a hawk or as a lover of beauty. how many music "lovers" do we know who can extol this tenor or that, this composer or that, but are unable to simply relax into the music, like dropping into a feather bed?! This translation is a feather bed; it may be made of fake materials, but who cares - the words, the images, the meanings are so delicate and close to the heart that it warms up and then one's intellect ceases to care. Let us not be too tight. Or as Rilke says:
I want to unfold.let no place in me hold itself closed,for where I am closed, I am false.
