Fall Break

I've been on fall break this week. "Fall" and "break" are ironically depressing terms for the period of rest which they supposedly represent. I've fallen into Rilke quite a bit this week and rather than coming up broken, have found glue for several scattered pieces of me. Good stuff in English, and I imagine even better in German.


But one tower was great wasn't it? O Angel, it was --
great, even when compared with you. Chartres was great --
and music soared even higher, soared far beyond us. But,
oh, even a lover, alone at the window at night . . .
doesn't she reach your knee?

Don't think I'm wooing you!
And, Angel, even if I were, you wouldn't come.
Because my call is always full of "Get away!" You
can't advance against such a powerful current. My call
is like an outstretched arm. And its clutching, upturned
open hand , a defense and
a warning , is always in front of you,
up there, incomprehensible.

Rilke, from The Seventh Elegy


And we: spectators, always, everywhere,
looking at and never from!
It floods us. We arrange it. It decays.
We arrange it again, and we decay.

Who's turned us around like this,
so that whatever we do, we always have
the look of someone going away? Just as a man
on the last hill showing him his whole valley
one last time, turns, and stops, and lingers --
so we live, and are forever leaving.

Rilke, from The Eighth Elegy