Going Blind

Going Blind

Rainer Maria Rilke

She sat just like the others as the table.

But on second glance she seemed to hold her cup

a little differently as she picked it up.

She smiled once. It was almost painful.

And when they finished and it was time to stand

and slowly as chance selected them they left

and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed)

I saw her. She was moving far behind

The others absorbed like someone who will soon

have to sing before a large assembly;

upon her eyes which were radiant with joy

light played as on the surface of a pool.

She followed slowly taking a long time

as though there were some obstacle in the way;

and yet: as though once it was overcome

she would be beyond all walking and would fly.

Before Summer Rain

Suddenly from all the green around you

something-you don't know what-has disappeared;

you feel it creeping closer to the window

in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover

reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:

so much solitude and passion come

from that one voice whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls with their ancient portraits glide

away from us cautiously as though

they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now:

the chill uncertain sunlight of those long

childhood hours when you were so afraid.

Portrait of My Father as a Young Man

In the eyes dream. The brow as if it could feel

something far off. Around the lips a great

freshness-seductive though there is no smile.

Under the rows of ornamental braid

on the slim Imperial officer's uniform:

the saber's basket-hilt. Both hands stay

folded upon it going nowhere calm

and now almost invisible as if they

were the first to grasp the distance and dissolve.

And all the rest so curtained with itself

so cloudy that I cannot understand

this figure as it fades into the background-.

Oh quickly disappearing photograph

In my more slowly disappearing hand.