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Rilke’s Late Night Violin Music
The poet’s poet invokes his invisible lover with longing
The first time I read Rilke’s poetry it became instantly clear to me that there was absolutely no reason for me to ever write again. How could I? After tuning into Rilke’s voice, his sensibilities and the depth of human experience that rose within him like a God, anything I could possibly say for the next thousand years would only be howling in the wind. And so, for the longest of times I became silent — what I imagined Mozart’s plumber might feel on his long way home, a song rising in him, but not wanting to sing and sully the memory of what he heard the Master playing just a few minutes ago.
But hey, you can’t be silent forever. Here’s a little something of mine inspired by Rilke…
Rilke’s Late Night Violin Music
Rainer Maria Rilke, the genius German poet
who translated God in ways no scripture ever could,
once wondered why every time he walked
beneath a high window
(out of which violin music could be heard)
he thought it promised him a future lover.
When I leave my body, I want to meet this man,
standing, as I imagine he will be, just beyond…
