Poetry Blog No 160 Two Autumn Poems from the German of Rilke

TWO AUTUMN POEMS from the German of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Mark Scrivener 

Rilke in Moscow painting L. Pasternak

Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926) was a Bohemian-Austrian writer and poet. His poetry is famous for its lyrical intensity, its "mystical" feeling and the struggle to find the spiritual and ineffable side of experience within the modern world. These qualities have made him popular in translation but also make capturing some of the subtle quality of his poems a challenge. These are two Rilke poems using the imagery of autumn as a metaphor.

Van Gogh Autumn Landscape

AUTUMN

After the German of Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves now falling, fall as if from far,

As if far gardens faded in the heavens;

They fall with graceful gestures of denial.

And in the nights the heavy earth falls, while

In loneliness, so far from every star.

We all are falling. See, this hand falls there.

And look at other things: it is in all.

And yet there's One who holds this fall

In His soft hands' unending, gentle care.

Tiergarten, Vienna Austria.

AUTUMN DAY

after the German of Rainer Maria Rilke

Lord, it is time. The summer was so vast.

Lay now your shadows on the hours of sundials.

The winds let loose and on the fields be cast.

Command last fruits now to grow full and fine;

give them but two, south-heated days' last trace;

push them to final ripeness; hunt and chase

last sweetness down into the heavy vine.

Those now who have no home will build no more.

Those now alone will long stay so; will wake,

will read at length, will write long letters, take

to restless wandering, go to and fro,

in alleys when the leaves are driven so.

Poetry Blog No 146 To a Reddening Leaf

TO A REDDENING LEAF

Generally speaking, intuitive "poetic" vision is regarded as unimportant in modern times- a mere subjective response to something or other. It has nothing to do with the clarity of knowledge attained by the scientific method. However, this method is only regarded as valid if it is confined entirely to sensory observation. The "essential" life and nature of anything is never experienced through this. Such experience may be claimed to be non-existent but the problem remains as "data" gives no inner basis to human life and morality if it is to be real and not merely convention needs also to be grasped by intuitive understanding. This small poem touches on these rather serious issues of perception I feel.

TO A REDDENING LEAF

When fading from green living

why do you redden

to a deep, rich red

before you brown back

to shapeless earth?

Is it

a mere declining-

                      the loss of light-absorbing hue;

or the last shining

of living fire

no longer hidden by

the plant's green cover?