Rainer Maria Rilke                          

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rainer Maria Rilke (also Rainer Maria von Rilke) (4 December 1875 - 29 December 1926) is considered one of the German language’s greatest
20th century poets. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound
anxiety - themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

He wrote in both verse and a highly lyrical prose. His two most famous verse sequences are the Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies; his two most famous prose works are the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. He also wrote more than 400 poems in French, dedicated to his homeland of choice, the canton of Valais in Switzerland.

The only journey is the one within.

A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/rainer_maria_rilke.html

Entrance

Whovever you are: step out in to the evening
out of your living room, where everything is so known;
your house stands as the last thing before great space:
Whoever you are.
With your eyes, which in their fatigue can just barely
free themselves from the worn-out thresholds,
very slowly, lift a single black tree
and place it against the sky, slender and alone.
With this you have made the world. And it is large
and like a word that is still ripening in silence.
And, just as your will grasps their meaning,
they in turn will let go, delicately, of your eyes . . .

Premonition

I am like a flag surrounded by vast, open space.
I sense the coming winds and must live through them,
while all other things among themselves do not yet move:
The doors close quietly, and in the chimneys is silence;
The windows do not yet tremble, and the dust is still heavy and dark.

I already know the storms, and I’m as restless as the sea.
I roll out in waves and fall back upon myself,
and throw myself off into the air and am completely alone
in the immense storm.

http://picture-poems.com/rilke/images.html#Entranc

The Book of Hours

The last house of this village stands
as alone as if it were the last house in the world.

The road, that the little village cannot hold,
moves on slowly out into the night.

The little village is but a place of transition,
expectant and afraid, between two distances,
a passageway along houses instead of a bridge.

And those who leave the village may wander
a long time, and many may die, perhaps, along the way.

http://picture-poems.com/rilke/hours.html#In%20diesem

Love Song

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn’t resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violins bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician hold us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

The selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Marie Rilke by Stephen Mitchell

I beg you…
to have patience with
everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves
as if they were locked rooms or
books written in a very foreign language.
Don’t search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now,
perhaps than, someday far in the future,
you will gradually,
without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.

Rumi                                                                                

Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207 - 1273 C.E.) (مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی,) known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, his first name Jalalu’ddin has the meaning Majesty of Religion,[1] was a mystical thirteenth century Persian Sufi poet, jurist, and theologian.

Rumi wrote over 65,000 verses of intoxicated poetry on the Sufi path of love and spiritual understanding. His ecstatic and wondrous spiritual writings left a lasting impression on Sufism, the mystical practice of Islam. His songs expressed the pain of being separated from the Beloved (Allah/God) and the joy of union with Him.

Rumi’s importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His poems have been translated into many of the world’s languages and have appeared in various formats. The Persian world, from Turkey to India, looks upon Rumi as one of the greatest spiritual poets in history. He has had a significant influence on both Persian and Turkish literature throughout the centuries. Over the last century, Rumi’s poetry has spread from the Islamic world and into the Western world. The lyrical beauty of his outpourings of love for the Divine have also helped to make him one of the most popular and best-selling poets in America.

In addition to his legacy as a poet, Rumi founded the Mevlevi Order, better known as the “Whirling Dervishes,” who believe in performing their worship in the form of dance.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/

Union

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas. language, even the phrase each other,
doesn’t make any sense.

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowed of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.

Rumi, The Book of Love, Coleman Barks

Shadow and Light Source Both

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How does wetness leave water? Dont’ try to

put out fire by throwing on more fire! Don’t
wash a wound with blood. No matter how fast

you run, your shadow keeps up. Sometimes it’s
in front! Only full overhead sun diminishes

your shadow. But that shadow has been serving
you. What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is

your candle. Your boundaries are your quest.
I could explain this, but it will break the

glass cover on your heart, and there’s no
fixing that. You must have shadow and light

source both. Listen, and lay your head under
the tree of awe. When from that tree feathers

and wings sprout on you, be quieter than
a dove. Don’t even open your mouth for even a coo.

From Soul of Rumi

by Coleman Barks

http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/Rumipoetry2.html