Friday, October 23, 2009

Letters to Rilke - Number 1

Dear R ,

Did you really know it
or was it a poetic guess?

For me it has never been so clear.

And when it became as apparent as the truth should be,
then...

But before then,

Do you have any idea how apparent the truth should be?

Have you ever felt
its coldness,
its crispiness,
its sharpness,
when it falls on you like rain on an autumn night?


You must have had it right there!

It hit me in the eyes;
my eyes burned.

And I had always assumed it would hurt the heart the most,

But no,
One should never assume about the truth; for it is not assumable.

And I was wrong about the heart,
It is the eyes that the truth hunts!




Letters to Rilke is a new sequence I am working on these days. Each piece have a parallel component from Rilke's Elegies.

Rainer Maria Rilke,

Duino Elegies,
Fragments of the First Elegy:

" But sing, when you must,
of great lovers:
their fame
has a long way to go
before it is really immortal.
...

Think of it:
the hero survives.

Even his ruin
is only another excuse to continue
a final birth.

But nature, exhausted
takes lovers
back into herself
as if she couldn't accomplish
that kind of vitality twice."



3 comments:

مسعود said...

سلام
فوق العاده است.کار تو لزوماً ارتباطی با محتوای سروده های ریلکه دارد یا مستقل است؟
موفق باشی.

Tameshk said...

Masud Jan,
Thanks for the comment. They correspond to Rilke's pieces in a sort of dialogue. But we all know that it is of course a monologue!

مسعود جان
این سری تازه مجموعه ای از نامه هاست؛ نوعی گفتگو است که موازی با اشعار ریلکه است. الزاما رابطه مستقیم ندارد ولی معمولا اشعار ریلکه جرقه به احساس و تجربه و شناخت من در پس ان قطعه زده که پنهانی یا اشکار بروز میکند.
مثلا ریلکه میگوید: ... بخوان انگاه که باید از عشاق نازنین؛ که شهره عاشقان راه درازی دارد تا جاودانگی...

و من میپرسم تو راه جاودانگی را میدانستی ؟ طولانی بودنش را و اینکه با سرودن داستان عاشقان جاودانگی میاید؟ میپرسم واقعا میدانستی یا حدسی شاعرانه زدی
که درست از کار درامده... و بعد از تجربه ای میگویم/ نمیگویم که مصداقی از مصرع ریلکه است برای من

amir said...

It's nice you've discovered Rilke. He's as deep as an ocean, yet not very well known. Most of his verses are hard to grasp, but a few have seized me. He led an interesting (agonizing!) life. You might find the memoir "Rilke & Benvenuta" interesting. It is the account of one of his more ardent love affairs as told years later by the surviving party.