Monday, May 17, 2010

Standing High


Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colours
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs —

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

11 comments:

Dixie Jane said...

A lovely poem and a silhouetted sky. It's Twilight Time, also a song recorded by The Platters in the 1950s.

Judy Williams said...

Oh wow!!!! That is just stunning and the poem is breathtakingly poignant. My oh my!!

Virginia said...

That is pretty wonderful and you always find the greatest poetry LA!
V

Anonymous said...

I love Rilke, but might love this most of all. Your photo so captures it.

TheChieftess said...

Ohhhh!!! This is a stunner Laurie!!!

Shanna said...

Hmmmm...

I needed you to provide a poem for my last post or for Judy to write one.
Did you see what I came up with?

Pasadena Adjacent said...

Did you take this last night? I got some sky shots from a different location. They looked like fleas skipping across the horizon. Everything looks like fleas to me

Petrea Burchard said...

I didn't know how much I liked Rilke until now. He's a very good blogger.

Shanna said...

I keep coming back to read the poem and look at your sky.

Poignant.

Mister Earl said...

Awesome!

Laurie Allee said...

Thanks, everyone. I had to laugh at Petrea's line about Rilke being a good blogger.

PasadenaAdjacent, I took this shot a few weeks ago, actually.

Shanna, I'm off to check out your latest.

I've been frazzled and stressed in the last few weeks, so my blog-checking is behind and my email inbox is overflowing. I promise to catch up in the coming days.

Love to you all, and thanks for being here and giving me such a wonderful, interactive blog. Until tomorrow...