Thursday, August 16, 2007

Du siehst, ich will viel


You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:

the darkness of each endless fall,

the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don't seem to care.

Casual, easy, they move in the world

as though untouched.


But you take pleasure in the faces

of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.


You are not dead yet, it's not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life

that reveals itself quietly there.


-- Rainer Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
trans.by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy


[Rilke is a well-regarded German poet, 1875-1926, a contemporary of Nietzsche (but obviously, no follower)]

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