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1:4
O you who are delicate, step now and then
into the breath that passes you by
as it brushes your cheek-bones, let it divide,
behind you it trembles, united again.
You who are happy, you who are whole,
you who seem the start of all hearts.
bows for the arrows and also their targets,
crying transforms your smile into gold.
Don’t be afraid to suffer; return
the heaviness to the weight of the earth.
mountains are heavy, so are the seas.
Even the trees you planted as children
grew more and more heavy and could not be borne.
Ah, but the spaces. . . ah, but the breeze.
— Rilke. Translation by John Rosenwald.
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