creation – Energy and Time

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 12

Wolle die Wandlung. O sei die Flamme begeistert,
drin sich ein Ding dir entzieht, das mit Verwandlungen prunkt;
jener entwerfende Geist, welcher das Irdische meistert,
liebt in dem Schwung der Figur nichts wie den wendenden Punkt.

Was sich ins Bleiben verschließt, schon ists das Erstarrte;
wähnt es sich sicher im Schutz des unscheinbaren Grau's?
Warte, ein Härtestes warnt aus der Ferne das Harte.
Wehe-: abwesender Hammer holt aus!

Wer sich als Quelle ergießt, den erkennt die Erkennung;
und sie führt ihn entzückt durch das heiter Geschaffne,
das mit Anfang oft schließt und mit Ende beginnt.

Jeder glückliche Raum ist Kind oder Enkel von Trennung,
den die staunend durchgehn. Und die verwandelte Daphne
will, seit sie lorbeern fühlt, daß du dich wandelst in Wind.

Want transformation. Oh, take inspiration from the flame,
wherein something escapes from you, which flaunts its very burning;
that architecting spirit which has mastered the mundane,
loves in the swirl of symbol best of all the point of turning.

What stays shut up inside itself, already is solidified;
does it dream it's safe in the shelter of inconspicuous grays?
Wait, from far away a Hardest warns the hard and petrified.
Alas - an absent hammer is upraised!

He who pours out like a spring is realized by Realization;
it leads him on in rapture through ebullient creation,
that often ends with starting and with ending oft begins.

Every happy space is child or grandchild of separation,
through which they pass amazed. And Daphne, after transformation,
wants, since she feels laurel, that you turn yourself to wind.

Translation notes:

lines 13-14: “Daphne … lorbeern”: Robert M. Durling, in his notes to a Petrarch sonnet (Rime sparse #5), observes “Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus in Thessaly, was pursued by Apollo. She prayed to her father to preserve her virginity, and when Apollo caught up with her she was transformed into a laurel. Apollo adopted the tree as his own and crowned himself with a wreath from it. (Ovid, Metamorphoses l.452-567)”. The theme of Daphne occurs many times in Petrarch, perhaps since his beloved’s name (Laura) was related to laurel. All the Sonnets to Orpheus are “Petrarchean” in a loose sense, being divided 4-4-3-3, as opposed to the Shakespearean or English sonnet form divided 4-4-4-2; Rilke must have read some Petrarch at some time. Also, in Latin laurel is “laurus” and is thought to derive from the verb “laudare”, to praise. Praise is a recurring theme throughout these sonnets, starting with the end of I,6 leading into the praise-centered I,7.

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 10

Alles Erworbne bedroht die Maschine, solange
sie sich erdreistet, im Geist, statt im Gehorchen, zu sein.
Daß nicht der herrlichen Hand schöneres Zögern mehr prange,
zu dem entschlossenern Bau schneidet sie steifer den Stein.

Nirgends bleibt sie zurück, daß wir ein Mal entrönnen
und sie in stiller Fabrik ölend sich selber gehört.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu können,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluß ordnet und schafft und zerstört.

Aber noch ist uns das Dasein verzaubert; an hundert
Stellen ist es noch Ursprung. Ein Spielen von reinen
Kräften, die keiner berührt, der nicht kniet und bewundert.

Worte gehen noch zart am Unsäglichen aus ...
Und die Musik, immer neu, aus den bebendsten Steinen,
baut im unbrauchbaren Raum ihr vergöttliches Haus.

All we've gained is threatened by the machine, for
as long as it has a willful spirit and won't obey.
To show the lovely lingering of masters' hands no more,
for its resolute building it cuts the stone in a stiffer way.

Nowhere does it hold back, so we once break free
and it stays oiling itself in the quiet factory.
It is life - it thinks it knows best, and when involved,
orders and creates and destroys with equal resolve.

But to us existence is still enchanted; still source
at a hundred places. A play of purest force,
that no one touches, who doesn't kneel and admire.

Words still come softly to the Unsayable ... and
the music, ever new, from trembling stones,
builds in useless space its house of prayer.

Genesis

Some, seeking for the holy, look
to lengthy written media;
find certitude in yards of books
like saint's encyclopedias.

But books are works of men, and so
must always miss the heart of it.
The truth abides where no men go,
and brevity's the soul of wit,

so if it's true this universe
began when something godlike stirred
and wrote on dark unbeing's face,

it only took a single verse,
a single line, a single word
to shatter all of time and space.

Isla Espiritu Santo, Baja
March 9, 1999