Friday Night Poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke

Evening


Slowly, the dusk wraps itself in the cloak
held for it at the dark edge of old trees;
you watch: the surrounding lands part from you,
one heavenward, one absorbed by the fall;

and leave you, belonging to neither realm,
not quite so dim as the empty stone house,
not quite at all invoking the eternal
as the flight of stars that sweep through the night;

and leave you—so unable to give speech—
your life—fearing, so large, ripening—
becomes now bearable, comprehending,
by turns the stone and star present in you.

—Rainer Maria Rilke