Rilke: Extinguish My Eyes

Lösch mir die Augen aus: ich kann dich sehen

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

What does it take to love this world?

How do we open ourselves to reality?

Rilke shifts the focus of love away from the sense organs and the surface of experience, and into the life-force of existence: the heart that silently pulses blood.

Sitting quietly, can we feel this steady, intimate coursing of love?

Rilke's Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Comments

[David Clark]

Nice choice, Barry. One of my new hospital poems touches on this idea. It was written early in the morning, after a sleepless night,

Though cruel be the Wheel
That turns day and
Night,
How sweet be the
Fate
To fall beneath its'
Tread.

This fall beneath the wheel is no other than to be annihilated and merged with the all. Not death, but a complete embrace with life.

I'm looking forward to more of the Rilke thread.

[jill i]

Breathtaking! Both Rilke and David's poem.
Reminds me of something I read recently about how important it is to check in with your life energy every day, paying attention and thanking it. I guess it's not necessarily YOUR life energy. Just energy.

[Marcus]

Wow.

[Suzanne]

Loving this world is easier than a lot of people's egos seem to think it is.

[Barry Briggs]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments - and your wonderful poem, David.