Dear Darkening Ground
By: Rainer Maria Rilke
Dear darkening ground, you’ve endured so patiently the walls we’ve built, perhaps you’ll give the cities one more hour and grant the churches and cloisters two. And those that labor—let their work grip them another five hours, or seven, before you become forest again, and water, and widening wilderness in that hour of inconceivable terror when you take back your name from all things. Just give me a little more time! I want to love the things as no one has thought to love them, until they’re worthy of you and real.
Translated by Joanna Macy — Book of Hours, I 61
Oh these lines:
before you become forest again,
and water, and widening wilderness
in that hour of inconceivable terror
when you take back your name
from all things.
Just give me a little more time!
At once a reminder of how little control we have over the world and an amusing portrayal of our … dare I say ignorance?
“Just give me a little more time!”
To whom do we say these words? What sort of response are we expecting? Do we suppose that, following our plea, the Earth will add ten minutes to the countdown clock?
Or is it just an expression of our unwillingness to accept what is immediate?
I’m smiling because I do this often, too.
Thank you for the poem on this Friday. 🙏
"in that hour of inconceivable terror
when you take back your name
from all things" --
Rilke dives into the question -- and as he stands there, alone in the privacy of his own suffering, he gifts us with truth.