The thinking nature

you who taught creatures their ear-

+ 

O

Understanding

the shapes of clouds

+

O

Limited and finite

the heart born into the whole

+

O

The whole universe of things

breath

+

O

Deep down,

the oldest

tangled root of all that's grown,

the secret source

they've never seen.

Helmet and horn of hunters,

old men's truths,

wrath of brothers,

women like lutes...

Branch pushing branch,

not one of them free...

One!  oh, climb higher... higher...

Yet they still break.

But this top one finally

bends into a lyre.

*

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

Dance the orange.

Who can forget it,

how,

drowning in itself,

it refuses

its own sweetness.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

                                                                                                          

All is far

-and nowhere does the circle close.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

O knowledge,

feeling,

joy-

immense!

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

Hail to the spirit

who can link us:

because we live in symbols,

really.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

Looking at the sky.

Is no constellation called "Rider"?

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

Do we know

friends, 

                            do we or not?

These two mold 

the hesitating span

of time into features

of the human.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

Only

in the double-world

do voices become

eternal and mild.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

But suddenly,

unpracticed and askant,

she lifts one of our voice's constellations

into the sky unclouded by her breath.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

He's one

                                                   of the messengers 

                                who stays,

                                          still extending bowls of glorious

                  fruit deep inside the doors of 

                           the dead.

Rilke


Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

Whoever's known

the roots 

of the willow

is better trained to bend the willow's 

limbs.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

Let the rose

bloom every year

to remind us of him.

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith

O you who are blessed

you who are whole

Rilke

Photograph by Nicole Page-Smith