Today is Rainer Maria Rilke's birthday
b. 1875, d. Dec. 29, 1926
Night
Night. You with your depth-dissolving face
pressed against my face.
You, counterbalance
to my awestruck gaze.
Night, shuddering in my regard,
but in yourself so steady;
inexhaustible creation, enduring beyond
the fate of earth;
brimming with new stars, who fling
fire from their birth
into the soundless adventure
of galactic spaces;
your sheer existence,
you transcender of all things, makes me so small.
Yet, one with the darkening earth,
I dare to be in you.
— Rainer Maria Rilke,
Uncollected Poems,
translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
sketch by me
