RILKE POEMS

From French poems : translated by A.Poulin, JR

A beautiful butterfly near
the earth is displaying
the illuminations of its flying
book to an attentive nature.

Another closes on the border
of the flower that we breath;
this is not the time to read.
And still so many others,

fragile blues scattered,
floating and fluttering
like the blue fragmenting
of a love letter in the wind,

of a torn-up letter
we had just been writing
while its addressee
hesitated at the door.
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INTERIOR PORTRAIT

You don’t survive in me
because of memories;
nor are you mine because
of a lovely longing’s strength.

What does make you present
is the ardent detour
that a slow tenderness
traces in my blood.

I do not need
to see you appear;
being born sufficed for me
to lose you a little less.
——Rainer Maria Rilke