Sunday, February 22, 2009

Gorgeousity

I finally took in my über-talented friend Amber's letterpress broadside to be framed, after years (years!) of planning to do so someday. I had two copies, so the title page/back page is on the left, and the inside of the booklet is on the right. The poem is one of Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, next to an English translation by William Gass.

I love the poem:
Anticipate all farewells, as if they were behind you
like the winter that's just past, for among winters
there will be one so relentlessly winter
that in overwintering it your heart will be readied to last.

Remain with Eurydice in the realm of death—rise there
singing, praising, to realize the harmony in your strings.
Here—among pale shades in a fading world—
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be—but nonetheless know why nothingness
is the unending source of your most fervent vibration,
so that this once you may give it your full affirmation.

To the store of copious Nature's used-up, cast-off,
speechless creatures—an unsayable amount—
jubilantly join yourself and cancel the count.

1 comment:

Amber said...

Lovely! I feel honored to have such a treasured place in your home.