Sunset
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.
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 (translated from German by Robert Bly)
**************************
To the New Year
With what stillness
at last
you appear in the
valley
your first sunlight
reaching down
to touch the tips of
a few
high leaves that do
not stir
as though they had
not noticed
and did not know you
at all
then the voice of a
dove calls
from far away in
itself
to the hush of the
morning
so this is the sound
of you
here and now whether
or not
anyone hears it this
is
where we have come
with our age
our knowledge such as
it is
and our hopes such as
they are
invisible before us
untouched and still
possible
W.S. Merwin
****************************
New Year
Resolve
The
time has come
To stop allowing the clutter
To clutter my mind
Like dirty snow,
Shove it off and find
Clear time, clear water.
Time for a change,
Let silence in like a cat
Who has sat at my door
Neither wild nor strange
Hoping for food from my store
And shivering on the mat.
Let silence in.
She will rarely speak or mew,
She will sleep on my bed
And all I have ever been
Either false or true
Will live again in my head.
For it is now or not
As old age silts the stream,
To shove away the clutter,
To untie every knot,
To take the time to dream,
To come back to still water.
May
Sarton