Entrance

Source: Favim

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,

out of the room that lets you feel secure.

Infinity is open to your sight.

Whoever you are.

With eyes that have forgotten how to see

from viewing things already too well-known,

lift up into the dark a huge, black tree

and  put it in the heavens:  tall, alone.

And you have made the world and all you see.

It ripens like the words still in your mouth.

And when at last you comprehend its truth,

then close your eyes and gently set it free.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

(Translated by Dana Gioia)

Entrance

Source: Favim

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,

out of the room that lets you feel secure.

Infinity is open to your sight.

Whoever you are.

With eyes that have forgotten how to see

from viewing things already too well-known,

lift up into the dark a huge, black tree

and  put it in the heavens:  tall, alone.

And you have made the world and all you see.

It ripens like the words still in your mouth.

And when at last you comprehend its truth,

then close your eyes and gently set it free.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

(Translated by Dana Gioia)

Thanks For Remembering Us

The flowers sent here by mistake,
signed with a name that no one knew,
are turning bad. What shall we do?
Our neighbor says they're not for her,
and no one has a birthday near.
We should thank someone for the blunder.
Is one of us having an affair?
At first we laugh, and then we wonder.

The iris was the first to die,
enshrouded in its sickly-sweet
and lingering perfume. The roses
fell one petal at a time,
and now the ferns are turning dry.
The room smells like a funeral,
but there they sit, too much at home,
accusing us of some small crime,
like love forgotten, and we can't
throw out a gift we've never owned.

~ Dana Gioia

Thanks For Remembering Us

The flowers sent here by mistake,
signed with a name that no one knew,
are turning bad. What shall we do?
Our neighbor says they're not for her,
and no one has a birthday near.
We should thank someone for the blunder.
Is one of us having an affair?
At first we laugh, and then we wonder.

The iris was the first to die,
enshrouded in its sickly-sweet
and lingering perfume. The roses
fell one petal at a time,
and now the ferns are turning dry.
The room smells like a funeral,
but there they sit, too much at home,
accusing us of some small crime,
like love forgotten, and we can't
throw out a gift we've never owned.

~ Dana Gioia

Entrance

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

(After Rilke)

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

~ Dana Gioia

Entrance

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

(After Rilke)

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

~ Dana Gioia

Do Not Expect...

Photo credit: alvimann from morguefile.com

Do not expect that if your book falls open

to a certain page, that any phrase

you read will make a difference today,

or that the voices you might overhear

when the wind moves through the yellow-green

and golden tent of autumn, speak to you.

Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the

dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon

your shadow walks beside you on the wall,

and the days stay long and heavy underneath

the distant rumor of the harvest. One

more summer gone,

and one way or another you survive,

dull or regretful, never learning that

nothing is hidden in the obvious

changes of the world, that even the dim

reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass

is more than you will ever understand.

And only briefly then

you touch, you see, you press against

the surface of impenetrable things.

~ Dana Gioia

____________________________________

Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. ~ Charlotte Brontë

Do Not Expect...

Photo credit: alvimann from morguefile.com

Do not expect that if your book falls open

to a certain page, that any phrase

you read will make a difference today,

or that the voices you might overhear

when the wind moves through the yellow-green

and golden tent of autumn, speak to you.

Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the

dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon

your shadow walks beside you on the wall,

and the days stay long and heavy underneath

the distant rumor of the harvest. One

more summer gone,

and one way or another you survive,

dull or regretful, never learning that

nothing is hidden in the obvious

changes of the world, that even the dim

reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass

is more than you will ever understand.

And only briefly then

you touch, you see, you press against

the surface of impenetrable things.

~ Dana Gioia

____________________________________

Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. ~ Charlotte Brontë

Words

Photo credit: greyerbaby from morguefile.com

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other--
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper--
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always--
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.

--Dana Gioia

Words

Photo credit: greyerbaby from morguefile.com

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other--
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper--
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always--
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.

--Dana Gioia