Into the Spaces We Breathe

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’

hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me

suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed

in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing

but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to

endure,

and we are so awed because it serenely disdains

to annihilate us…

Ah, whom can we ever turn to

in our need? Not angels, not humans,

and already the knowing animals are aware

that we are not really at home in

our interpreted world. Perhaps there remains for us

some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take

into our vision.…

Don’t you know yet? Fling the emptiness out of your arms

into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds

will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying…

And then in the startled space which a youth as lovely as a god

had suddenly left forever, the Void felt for the first time

that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and helps us.

   Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies