Autumn
Rainer Maria Rilke
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
in college I wrote a term paper on Rilke and modernism - I wish I could go back and grant myself the understanding I have now... the understanding, but not the experience - if only life permitted us this luxury!
