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.