look at the flowers...

Look at the flowers, so faithful to what
is earthly,

to whom we lend fate from the very
border of fate.

and if they are sad about how they
must wither and die,

perhaps it is our vocation to be their
regret.

All things want to fly, only we are
weighed down by desire,

caught in ourselves and enthralled with
our heaviness.

oh what consuming, negative teachers
we are

for them, while eternal childhood fills
them with grace.

If someone were to fall into intimate
slumber, and slept

deeply with Things - : how easily he
would come

to a different day, out of the mutual
depth,

Or perhaps he would stay there; and
they would blossom and praise

their newest convert, who now is like
one of them,

all those silent companions in the wind
of the meadows.

words: r.m.rilke, sonnets to orpheus
image:cyanotype RPPC, 1910