Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shimmering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing,
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a ***.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.
Rainer Maria Rilke / The Book of the Hours
(translated by Robert Bly: German)
S T, 20 July 2013
love this poem ...so touching :)
sub: 'your eyes'
my child, my child
1.
crying beside long stalks of sugarcane
flat on the mudfloor
next to worn baskets in the corner
heart rent
never will I see your eyes
open again
your little brother watches me:
he sees his father on knees
and arms to the sky
raging in snot-rivulets and loud tears
while your mother tends to all else
she cannot afford to spill now
the other babies need to be fed and changed
2.
she carries her pain inside
as she always does
later she will scrub it out in the laundry
and pound it in the corn
and wring it from the wet clothes
and sweep
fling it to the sky
*my child, my child
what did they do?
what have they given you?*
3.
I sent you off on your journey
not ever thinking that
I never would see your eyes
again
now I tear my hair
and gouge my eyes
I bare my soul
and ask...why??
4.
dried tears leave ashen lines
as a warm flood spills
fresh
hot lament on cheeks
I touch your young face
so serene ...eternally serene
I would knee-walk eternal
on rusty nails and toxic cans
if I could see your eyes once more
but the time has come:
your mother comes to wash you
one last time
*never will I see your eyes
again
your beautiful
life-giving eyes
again*