Rainer Maria Rilke

A Walk

By Rainer Maria Rilke 1875-1926
Translated by Robert Bly

My eyes already touch the sunny hill
going far ahead of the road I have began.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which hardly sensing it,
we already are: a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.


One of the realities of the country that I am in, is the amount of walking that everyone does including me. I walk to work and then back home five days a week. I walk to the grocery stores and to anyplace I want to go. I take the bus but walk once I get off a bus stop. When I begin my walk, I walk a one lane road along a iron fence that has climbing roses when in bloom. I also walk along a golf course with tall bamboo and trees on one side and gardens that a corporation cultivates on the other side. People are often on their hands and knees weeding the gardens and I have seen elderly men with small scissors cutting excess grass. Such is the life here in Korea.

I am reading the only novel," The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge", that Rilke ever wrote. I am half way through this haunting book and am enjoying it very much. I thought I would look at his biography and his poetry. I found this poem and thought about the walking that I do everyday.

The protagonist in Rilke novel walks around Paris with a hate/love affection. I hate to walk to work, too, as the days are full of humidity and often it rains. The umbrella can protect one, but there nothing one can do to protect against humidity. Yet the university where I teach is nestled in sharp but beautiful mountain peaks that are close to the campus. Often the fog or clouds hug the summits in such a way that it takes my breath away.

There are interesting people who toil the gardens of the university and one of them last week was a Buddhist monk. During the last election, there were lots of people handing out literature but of course they ignored me. That is the first time I did not worry about what I was going to do with stuff handed to me as there is no trash cans nearby. There were a labor demonstration with signs and everything but since the signs were in Korean I had no idea what the issue was. I asked one person but he did not speak English. There are people from Christian organizations handing out religious tracks but again they ignore me as the tracks are in Korean.

Often people come up to me and say hello. Sometimes I know them and sometimes I do not. Most students do not have cars and are walking as I am. Cars are not charged parking fees but they are parked everywhere including the crosswalks. Cars never stop for pedestrians in crosswalks which makes one wonder why they are painted in the first place. Buses never do either. They also never stop for people who are only a few feet away. You are either at the door getting in or you catch the next bus.

Then there is the road of life. Mine lies in Korea at the moment. I have learned to look only a few feet and not think too much about the destination. Who knows how long I will be here. In the meantime, I am finally enjoying myself here. I used to think I had people against my staying here as the poem says: "a gesture waves us on answering our own wave...but what we feel is the wind in our faces." Indeed, what I am feeling is karma in my face or just plain life happening as it does everywhere else.

Our destination does change us even if we do not reach it. I don't know where I am going or when I will reach it, but my eyes already touch the sunny hills.

Walt Whitman

No. 12 of Song of the Road
By Walt Whitman 1819-1892

Allons! After the great Companions and to belong to them!
They too are on the road-they are the swift and majestic man-they are the greatest woman,
Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitues of many distant countries, habitues of far-distant dwellings,

Trusters of men and women: observers of cities; solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts: blossoms, shells of the shores,
Dancers at weddings-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins,

Journeyers over consecutive seasons over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it,
Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,
Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and well-grain'd manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample unsurpass'd content,
Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Sometimes, I lose the magic of this life. I feel the gathering of the years as now and the ageism type of prejudice that comes with my job and life and I look out on the road that I am traveling and feel depressed. I walk to work everyday and have never missed one class. I get my assignments and the things I need to do on time; but I can't escape from the realization that I am viewed as a senior citizen. In other words, I am an old lady. I look in the mirror and wonder who took my youth away, who stole my identity as a young woman? I look in the faces and eyes of the people I work for and they, too, see just one more old lady.

Then I read Walt Whitman especially his "Song of Myself" and I feel again the magic. I am one of the journeyers with my own sublime old age of womanhood walking the long road of life. Whitman had discovered the power of the universe and let it filter through him and into his poetry. I, too, have the calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe flowing free as I walk. I had forgotten this.

Death is one of those things that all seniors have to walk with. We can't avoid it, but most of us realize that Death becomes a friend in our later years. Many people in the last days long for the presence of it. According to Whitman, death can help enjoy the freedom that we have when we live our lives. We could never have done that when we were younger. I am not ready to make that final exit right now, but it is nice to enjoy a talk or two with my neighbor who is never very far.

I remember all too well when I was a dancer at weddings, tender helpers of children and bearers of children. Now, I am a grandmother of children. I have also seen too many gaping graves and too many coffins lowered of soldiers before their time. I can remember my past memories and still enjoy the stars and seas, mountains and streams of a world still very much alive as I am for now. I am content now to remember the joys that Whitman gives me in his poetry and grateful that he did. Reading him, you can still hear him from where ever he is still walking his road and telling us all what a wonderful world we live in. That is a very rare talent.

Sir Phillip Sidney

Sonnet 102: Wher Be Those Roses Gone

By Sir Phillip Sidney 1554-1586

Where be those rose gone, which sweeten'd so our eyes?
Where those red cheeks, where oft with fair increase did frame
The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stol'n from my morning skies?

How did the color fade of those vermillion dyes
Which Nature self did make, and self engrain'd the same?
I would know by what right this palenese overcame
That hue, whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties.

Galen's adoptive sons who by a beaten way
Their judgements harkney on the fault of sickness lay,
But feeling proof makes me say theymistake it furre.

it is but Love, which makes his paper perfect while
to write therein more fresh the story of delight
while Beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir.


Astrophel and Stella XXXIX

By Sir Philip Sidney

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low.
With shield of proof shield me doth the prease
Of these fierce darts despair at me doth throw:
O make in me these civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

Sidney was a wonderful poet, but because he lived so long ago under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in England many people don't read him. That is a shame because many of his poems have echoes that have found themselves in our language today. He lived only into his 30's but left a rich legacy of writings and poetry.

Anyone who has ever had trouble sleeping can understand his second poem only too well. In a sense, it speaks of sleep as the "baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, the poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release." It can also speak of death in the same voice. Indeed, it is the poor man's wealth as the ability to sleep deeply and well is not dependent on wealth and position so that the gift of sleep belongs to no one. I suspect that the man or woman who works hard in the fields come home and sleeps very well at night while the more wealthier man who works very little has more trouble achieving that restful time.

All of Sidney's poetry and writings are on the Internet free for all as it is in the public domain. It was not hard to find the two poems I wanted to find. I was thinking of roses as I was working on a story that had roses in it. I really recommend Sidney to all people who read poetry as a wonderful exercise in beauty and achievement. It is also free to download and easy to find.