Monday, January 01, 2007

Rainer Marie Rilke

from The Book of Images

And you wait, await the one thing

that will infinitely increase your life,

the gigantic, the stupendous,

the awakening of stones,

depths turned round toward you.

The volumes in brown and gold

flicker dimly on the bookshelves;

and you think of lands traveled through,

of paintings, of the garments

of women found and lost.

And then all at once you know: that was it.

You rise, and there stands before you

the fear and prayer and shape of a vanished year.

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