Exposed on the cliffs of the heart


















Exposed on the cliffs of the heart

Look, how tiny down there

look

the last village of words and

higher (but how tiny)still one last

farmhouse of feeling

Can you see it

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart

Stoneground

under your hands

Even here, though

something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge

an unknowing plant blooms

singing into the air

But the one who knows

Ah, he began to know

and is quiet now

exposed on the cliffs of the heart

While, with their full awareness

many sure-footed mountain animals pass

or linger

And the great sheltered birds flies, slowly

circling, around the peak's pure denial

But without a shelter,

here on the cliffs of the heart...






Author's Notes/Comments: 

Rainer Maria Rilke.
Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate-?); it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself in another's sake

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Ernest Bevans's picture

Splendid Piece - love is frequently misunderstood
most believe that it is a tool designed to scratch
that which itches... Love is a "Verb" purely an
action. I love this splendid poem.