Happy Birthday, Poet Rilke

in #esteem5 years ago (edited)

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I was thinking, earlier, along these lines: Who are our literary friends that we can still (re)turn to... what books can we still pick up that marked us, years or decades ago, and still speak to us, despite all the changes we've been through?

Boheman-Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, is one of the few old friends for me who renew themselves ; he grows with us, and reveals more of himself as we reach for him over the years.

In honor of his birthday, today, below is a mixed bouquet of his remarkable words:

"I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm
or a great song."

(You can listen to my reading of this poem, and more by Rilke, on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/yahia-lababidi)


“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves."


"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."


"Where something becomes extremely difficult and unbearable, there we also stand already quite near its transformation."


"Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened...

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost."

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Rilke is one of my favs...I've read Letters to a Young Poet several times, thank you for the tribute

Yes, he's inexhaustible... If you like his early writing, such as the Letter, I recommend his devotional Book of Hours. Otherwise, of course, the Duino Elegies & Sonnets to Orpheus are masterpieces _/|\_

thanks for the recommendations, I haven't read any of them and they are now on my list!

Thank you for being here for me, so I can be here for you.
Enjoy your day and stay creative!
Botty loves you. <3

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