so she reveals her life
and then falls silent.
35
Au ciel, plein d’attention,
ici la terre raconte;
son souvenir la surmonte
dans ces nobles monts.
Parfois elle paraît attendrie
qu’on l’écoute si bien—
alors elle montre sa vie
et ne dit plus rien.
Book of Flight
A lovely butterfly flying low
shows whatever is watching
the illuminations
in its book of flight.
Another one closes its wings
on the edge of a breathable flower;
this isn’t the time for reading.
Still others scatter,
the essence of blue,
floating and fluttering away
like the wispy blue fragments
of a love letter in the wind,
the torn-up letter
that was just being written
while its addressee
stood in the door.
36
Beau papillon près du sol,
à l’attentive nature
montrant les enluminures
de son livre de vol.
Un autre se ferme au bord
de la fleur qu’on respire:
ce n’est pas le moment de lire.
Et tant d’autres encor,
de menus bleus, s’éparpillent,
flottant et voletant,
comme de bleues brindilles
d’une lettre d’amour au vent,
d’une lettre déchirée
qu’on était en train de faire
pendant que la destinataire
hésitait à l’entrée.
Valaisian Sky
Each beat of our hearts
desperately needs advice about balance,
the kind that’s given
by the whole broad sky!
The sky has known
our sorrows forever;
it is a friend to the rugged earth,
smoothing out its edges.
37: Ciel Valaisan
Comment notre cœur lorsqu’il vibre
a-t-il tant besoin
que tout un ciel de loin
lui donne des conseils d’équilibre.
Mais ce ciel depuis toujours
a de nos cris l’habitude;
ami de la terre rude,
il en adoucit le contour.
5
Orchards
“There is no difference between what is seen and the mind that sees it.”9
Of “Orchards,” Dieckmann writes: “[Rilke] begins to realize that his end is near. There is a difference between the acceptance of Death as part of life, such as Rilke had expressed it so often, and the clear realization that now his own death is near . . .”10
The title poem in this series of fifty-nine, Orchard, occurs in the middle of the series, like the fountain at the orchard’s center, from which all else flows. Nature is depicted in the most subtle turns of phrase that result, somehow, in the impossibility of the reader to project himself into the “thing” described, e.g. tree or breeze. Yet, we are one with these phenomena. Rilke informs us that “orchard and road are no different / from anything we are.”
The orchard is a container, a kind of hologram for all of life and its seasons, most especially the poignant decline at the turning from summer to autumn. The joy, magic and perfection of ripe fruit brings the end of a happy season. Summer, by definition, betrays us with its bright promises.
“I’ve said my goodbyes,” Rilke declares in the last entry in the series. These poems, more than any other in this book, express Rilke’s poetic farewell to his beloved world. He reckons with god, “the heavy hand of the Invisible,” pleading, “May the god be satisfied / with our brief shining moment / before sending a malevolent wave / that smashes us to pieces.” He points out, one last time, the importance of paradox: “It’s natural for the Organ to growl / so that every note of music / can abound with love.”
I don‘t know who he had in mind when he wrote “Elegy,” but I think of his enduring spirit when I read it: “How many lives will continue to echo, / and given the altitude at which you flew / while in this world, / a great void is no longer so hollow.”
9. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Joyful Wisdom (New York: Three Rivers, 2009), 151.
10. Dieckmann, “Rainer Maria Rilke’s French Poems,” 336.
Visitation
Stay calm if suddenly your table
is the one the Angel chooses.
Gently smooth the wrinkles
in the tablecloth under the bread.
Then offer him a taste
of your rustic food, let him
raise to his pure lips
a simple everyday cup.
3
Reste tranquille, si soudain
l’Ange à ta table se décide;
efface doucement les quelques rides
que fait la nappe sous ton pain.
Tu offriras ta rude nourriture
pour qu’il en goûte à son tour,
et qu’il soulève à sa lèvre pure
un simple verre de tous les jours.
What a strange assignment
have we whispered to the flowers,
to measure the weight of passion
with their delicate scales.
The stars are completely confused
when we involve them in our grief.
And nothing, from frail to strong,
has ever shown itself willing
to entertain our changing moods,
our impetuousness, our cries,
except the tireless table
and the table that’s fainted, the bed.
4
Combien a-t-on fait aux fleurs
d’étranges confidences,
pour que cette fine balance
nous dise le poids de l’ardeur.
Les astres sont tous confus
qu’à nos chagrins on les mêle.
Et du plus fort au plus frêle
nul ne supporte plus
notre humeur variable,
nos révoltes, nos cris—
sauf l’infatigable table
et le lit (table évanouie).
The Hand of the Invisible
Who knows how much of us
he will refuse, the day we finally surrender
to the heavy hand of the Invisible
and his invisible ruse.
Our core eventually obeys our longing,
steps aside to allow the heart,
Grand Master of Loss,
to have its way.
6
Nul ne sait, combien ce qu’il refuse,
l’Invisible, nous domine, quand
notre vie à l’invisible ruse
cède, invisiblement.
Lentement, au gré des attirances
notre centre se déplace pour
que le cœur s’y rende à son tour:
lui, enfin Grand-Maître des absences.
Palm
For Mrs. and Mr. Albert Vulliez
The sleeping stars
have climbed skyward,
have left their soft
disheveled bed.
Was this a good bed?
Are they rested now,
clear and shiny,
swirling among
their fellow stars?
O these hands, two beds
abandoned and cold,
missing the solid we
ight
of those stars.
7: Paume
À Mme. et M. Albert Vulliez
Paume, doux lit froissé
òu des etoiles dormantes
avaient laissé des plis
en se levant vers le ciel.
Est-ce que ce lit était tel
qu’elles se trouvent reposées,
claires et incandescentes,
parmi les astres amis
en leur élan éternel?
Ô les deux lits de mes mains,
abandonnés et froids,
légers d’un absent poids
de ces astres d’airain.
The Last Word
Our next-to-last word
might be a word of misery,
but faced with Mother Conscience,
the last one will be lovely.
That word will return us
to the workings of a desire
that no hint of bitterness
knows how to overcome.
8
Notre avant-dernier mot
serait un mot de misère,
mais devant la conscience-mère
le tout dernier sera beau.
Car il faudra qu’on résume
tous les efforts d’un désir
qu’aucun goût d’amertume
ne saurait contenir.
The Exchange
If we sing a god,
only silence returns.
Our futures hold nothing
but silent gods.
Though we can’t hear or see it,
this exchange shakes us;
it’s the heritage of angels
never meant for us.
9
Si l’on chante un dieu,
ce dieu vous rend son silence.
Nul de nous ne s’avance
que vers un dieu silencieux.
Cet imperceptible échange
qui nous fait frémir,
devient l’héritage d’un ange
sans nous appartenir.
Venetian Glass
Venetian glass is born
knowing it will fall in love
with this shade of gray
and this vacillating light,
just as your tender hands
dreamed in advance
of slowing down
the intensity of our moments.
12
Comme un verre de Venise
sait en naissant ce gris
et la clarté indécise
dont il sera épris,
ainsi tes tendres mains
avaient rêvé d’avance
d’être la lente balance
de nos moments trop pleins.
A Summer Passerby
Do you see her there, the one we envy,
walking on the path, slow and happy?
At the turn in the road, handsome gentlemen
of days gone by ought to stop and greet her.
Under her parasol, with casual grace,
she avails herself of a gentler choice:
disappearing briefly in the blinding brightness,
she shines in the shade she brings with her.
14: La Passante d’Été
Vois-tu venir sur le chemin la lente, l’heureuse,
celle que l’on envie, la promeneuse?
Au tournant de la route il faudrait qu’elle soit
saluée par de beaux messieurs d’autrefois.
Sous son ombrelle, avec une grâce passive,
elle exploite la tendre alternative:
s’effaçant un instant à la trop brusque lumière,
elle ramène l’ombre dont elle s’éclaire.
The Whole Night
The whole night is lifted
on a lover’s sigh,
one brief caress
across a dazzled sky.
As if in the universe
an elemental force
became again the mother
of all love lost.
15
Sur le soupire de l’amie
toute la nuit se soulève,
une caresse brève
parcourt le ciel ébloui.
C’est comme si dans l’univers
une force élémentaire
redevenait la mère
de tout amour qui se perd.
The Temple of Love
Who will help finish the temple of Love?
Each person brings one of the columns,
and when it’s done the god will come
and breach the enclosure with his arrow.
We’re shocked, and yet
that’s his reputation.
Our cries grow like vines
on this wall of abandon.
17
Qui vient finir le temple de l’Amour?
Chacun en emporte une colonne;
et à la fin tout le monde s’étonne
que le dieu à son tour
de sa flèche brise l’enceinte.
(Tel nous le connaissons.)
Et sur ce mur d’abandon
pousse la plainte.
Water and Love
Water, how quickly you run away, forgetting,
blithely drunk by the earth.
Now linger in the cup of my hands for a moment
with your memories!
Love runs clear and bright, indifferent,
almost here but gone;
between too much arrival and too much parting
trembles a little sojourn.
18
Eau qui se presse, qui court—eau oublieuse
que la distraite terre boit,
hésite un petit instant dans ma main creuse,
souviens-toi!
Clair et rapide amour, indifférence,
presque absence qui court,
entre ton trop d’arrivée et ton trop de partance
tremble un peu de séjour.
Eros
I
You are the focus of a game
where winning means losing,
as famous as Charlemagne,
emperor, god, king—
and, you’re the pitiful beggar
standing hunched on the corner:
it’s your changeable face
that gives you such power.
This could all be good,
but it isn’t: in us you’re like
the black interior of an embroidered
cashmere shawl.
19: Eros
I
Ô toi, centre du jeu
où l’on perd quand on gagne;
célèbre comme Charlemagne,
roi, empereur et Dieu—
tu es aussi le mendiant
en pitoyable posture,
et c’est ta multiple figure
qui te rend puissant.
Tout ceci serait pour le mieux;
mais tu es, en nous (c’est pire),
comme le noir milieu
d’un châle brodé de cachemire.
II
In order for a fire so wild to be tamed,
we must risk everything, even danger
and disruption. His face must be obscured,
he must be returned to the beginning of time.
He comes in so close, he wedges himself
between us and the lover he claims as his own;
he wants our touch, this barbaric god
panthers brush against in the desert.
He enters us with his grand cortege,
expecting everything to be well lit.
&nbs
p; Later he escapes as from a trap,
without having touched the bait.
II
Ô faisons tout pour cacher son visage
d’un mouvement hagard et hasardeux,
il faut le reculer au fond des âges
pour adoucir son indomptable feu.
Il vient si près de nous qu’il nous sépare
de l’être bien-aimé dont il se sert;
il veut qu’on touche; c’est un dieu barbare
que des panthères frôlent au désert.
Entrant en nous avec son grand cortège,
il y veut tout illuminé—
lui, qui, après se sauve comme d’un piège,
sans qu’aux appâts il ait touché.
III
Sometimes we spot him under the arbor,
there, deep in the foliage:
the ruddy face of that enfant sauvage,
his wrinkled, gnarly mouth. . . .
The grapes sag down in front of him,
heavy under their own tired weight;
for one terrifying moment we feel
how happily summer betrays us.
He proudly infuses all the fruits
with the raw color of his smile.
Then he uses the same old trick
to gently rock himself to sleep.
III
Là, sous la treille, parmi le feuillage
il nous arrive de le deviner:
son front rustique d’enfant sauvage,