! ! Rilke In Rome Poem by Michael Shepherd

! ! Rilke In Rome

Rating: 2.4


The chance remains of another time
and a life that is not ours...
no, there is not 'more' beauty here than elsewhere -
but there is much beauty here,
for there is much beauty everywhere.

Waters unendingly full of life move along the old aqueducts
into the great city
and dance in the many squares over white stone basins
and spread out in wide spacious pools
and murmur by day
and lift up their murmuring to the night
that is large and starry here and soft with winds.

And gardens are here, unforgettable avenues
and flights of stairs, stairs designed by Michelangelo,
stairs that are built after the pattern
of downward-gliding waters - broadly bringing forth
step out of step in their descent
like wave after wave.

Through such impressions one collects oneself,
wins oneself back again,
and learns slowly to recognize the very few things
in which the eternal endures
that one can love.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Savannah Churchill 16 September 2005

yawn

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Raynette Eitel 16 September 2005

Michael this is beautiful. I'm not sure how much is you and how much is Rilke, but thanks for bringing this together for us. Well done. (and ignore the ignorant comments!) Raynette

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Michael Shepherd 17 September 2005

I've simply extracted lines and more continuous passages, without changing any words. Just an instructive poetic exercise in 'playing being Rilke'. And I would hope it would encourage those who yawn, to become a little more interested in the world outside themselves, perhaps even read Rilke's 'real' poetry?

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Michael Shepherd 20 October 2006

These letters were certainly more 'poetic' than those to other friends.

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Herbert Nehrlich1 17 September 2005

What I meant was that Rilke gave up whatever was necessary including being jobless in order to be a poet. His letters were written and addressed to his own soul. H

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Michael Shepherd 17 September 2005

Not a motive. just a fact.

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Herbert Nehrlich1 17 September 2005

Michael I do not think that Rilke's motives were to write letters of encouragement to young budding poets while he himself was struggling through the agony of finding himself as a poet. If there is any truth to this it would include the fact that he would NEVER admit or acknowledge that. H

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Michael Shepherd 17 September 2005

...and maybe it's worth adding that Rilke was still going through the agonies of 'finding himself' as a poet, when he wrote these courteous letters to a slightly younger poet?

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Michael Shepherd

Michael Shepherd

Marton, Lancashire
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