Excuse me if I go a bit mad with posting Rilke poems over the next week or so on my blog. At the library yesterday I came across Australian spiritual writer, Stepane Dowrick’s book on Rilke : In The Company Of Rilke and its blowing my mind, having loved his poems for ever. Stephanie writes really nourishing books on prayer, spirituality and emotional subjects and this book is such a treat. I am going to post another one of his pems below. I came across Rilke in early sobriety and loved Letters To A Young Poet and I bought his Book Of Hours last year. I am sure heaps of us are familiar with his poems, but its a real treat revisiting them and benefiting from Stephanie’s commentary and selections. Enjoy.
Breath, you invisible poem!
Pure, continuous exchange
with all that is, flow and counterflow
where rhythmically I come to be.
Each time a wave that occurs just once
In a sea I discover I am
You, innermost of oceans,
you, infinitude of space.
How many far places were once
within me. Some winds
Are like my own child.
When I breathe them now, do they know me again?
Air, you silken surround
completion and seed of my words
Emerging From The Dark Night 