Rainer Maria Rilke LA PANTERA

Su mirada se ha cansado de tanto observar
esos barrotes ante sí, en desfile incesante,
que nada más podría entrar ya en ella.
Le parece que sólo hay miles de barrotes
y que detrás de ellos ningún mundo existe.

Mientras avanza dibujando una y otra vez
con sus pisadas círculos estrechos,
el movimiento de sus patas hábiles y suaves
va mostrando una rotunda danza,
en torno a un centro en el que sigue alerta
una imponente voluntad.

Sólo a veces, permite en silencio, la apertura
de los cortinajes que ocultaban sus pupilas;
y cruza una imagen hacia adentro,
se desliza a través de los tensos músculos
cae en su corazón, se desvanece y muere.

Rainer Maria Rilke THE WORDS OF HUMANS

The words of humans fill me with fear.
They name all the things with articulate sound:
so this is called house and that is called hound,
and the end's over there and the start's over here.

Their thinking is scary, with scorn they have fun;
they know what will come and what came before;
and even the mountain is sacred no more:
their property ends just where God's has begun.

I'm meaning to warn them and stop them: Stay clear!
It's the singing of things I'm longing to hear.
You touch them and stiff and silent they turn.
You're killing the things for whose singing I yearn!

Rainer Maria Rilke IN THE BEGINNING

Ever since those wondrous days of Creation
our Lord God sleeps: we are His sleep.
And He accepted this in His indulgence,
resigned to rest among the distant stars.

Our actions stopped Him from reacting,
for His fist-tight hand is numbed by sleep,
and the times brought in the age of heroes
during which our dark hearts plundered Him.

Sometimes He appears as if tormented,
and His body jerks as if plagued by pain;
but these spells are always outweighed by the
number of His countless other worlds.