I’ve been waiting in a lot of lines today (among many other things) but it isn’t all bad because I have my handy SHAMBHALA POCKET CLASSICS edition (which I don’t think they make any more) of RAINER MARIA RILKE’s THE SONNETS TO ORPHEUS in the fabulous STEPHEN MITCHELL translation and was able to find a few gems therein for you, my beloved, loyal readers.

Sometimes, especially as year blends into year, I wonder why I keep going on, pissing out my work to an indifferent world, the answer being, of course, that I can’t help it, but wouldn’t it be nice if what RILKE promises were to really come true in 2007:

He who pours himself out like a stream is acknowledged at last by Knowledge;

and she leads him enchanted through the harmonious country

that finishes often with starting, and with ending begins.

I always thought this would make a good yearbook quote:

Anxious we keep longing for a foothold –

we, at times too young for what is old

and too old for what has never been;

doing justice only where we praise,

because we are the branch, the iron blade,

and sweet danger, ripening from within.