Observations placeholder
Rilke, Rainer Maria - 36 Eighth Elegy
Identifier
007319
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Duino Elegies – Rainer Maria Rilke [The Eighth Elegy]
O bliss of little creatures
that stay in the womb that carried them forever:
O joy of the midge that can still leap within,
even when it is wed: since womb is all.
And see the half-assurance of the bird,
almost aware of both from its inception,
as if it were the soul of an Etruscan,
born of a dead man in a space
with his reclining figure as the lid.
And how dismayed anything is that has to fly,
and leave the womb. As if it were
terrified of itself, zig-zagging through the air, as a crack
runs through a cup.
As the track of a bat rends the porcelain of evening.