Rilke Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

As in Lavasa the hill station near Pune,
So in Tawang and Bomdila on the hills,
I open Rilke poems, and introduction by Hass,
To read Stephen Mitchell’s translation.

Amazing...Rilke does talk intimately,
Sometimes obscurely, always passionately,
His Eurydice is pushed back to Hell
By Rilke who tells her of advantages of death.

There are some like this German poet
Who grow on me with every dip:
I feel at home, warm, exploratory,
Come up with a new turn, a phrase
That sinks to become pearls
Like father’s eyes – rich and strange.
‘In love, ’ he says, ‘letting each other go’
Is important and adds, ’ for holding on
Comes easily; we do not need to learn it’.

His mother called him her ‘Rene’ ‘Miss’,
Memory of elder sister-baby who died,
But father put him in tough military acacemy
And Lou his first love made him change to Rainer.