This week’s poetic offering is by Rainer Maria Rilke, the Bohemian-Austrian poet (1875 –1926), from the tenth of his Duino Elegies. These elegies express the joy and anguish of human existence, and the interdependence of life and death, with a deep lyrical intensity.

Excerpt from The Tenth Duino Elegy

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Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight,

let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.

Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart

fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful,

or a broken string. Let my joyfully streaming face

make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise

and blossom. How dear you will be to me then, you nights

of anguish. Why didn’t I kneel more deeply to accept you,

inconsolable sisters, and surrendering, lose myself

in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain.

How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration

to see if they have an end. Though they are really

our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,

one season in our inner year –, not only a season

in time –, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home.

Poems for These Times

‘Poems for These Times’ is a special collection of poetry offered in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is intended as a way of sustaining us, and to give us something on which to meditate together during these difficult and challenging times.

There will be just one poem each week, so that we can really stay with what is offered. We can read it – perhaps aloud – to ourselves or to any companions in our isolation, and sense the vibrations through our whole being. For poetry has the power to affect us on every level – body, mind, heart and soul. It has a magic, which, in the words of poet Adrienne Rich:

“… goes back very far: the rune; the chant; the incantation; the spell; the kenning; sacred words; the naming of the child; the plant, the insect, the ocean, the configuration of stars, the snow, the sensation in the body… The physical reality of the human voice.”

Of course, not every poem will appeal to everyone – that is inevitable. But there is also the possibility that staying with something that does not immediately appeal can be stimulating and helpful. Experience suggests that sustained attention and contemplation of a poem’s music, words and thoughts can be deeply rewarding.

It would be lovely to share any responses and thoughts you may have through our comments section below.

Barbara Vellacott