January, 2012 – Departure

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Departure

 

By Rainer Maria Rilke

How I’ve come to sense this thing called departure.
How I still know:  a dark unscathed
cruel something, holding up a delicate braid,
showing it to us again, only to tear it apart.

How defenseless I was, looking upon
that which, calling to me as it left me,
remained behind, as if it were all women
and yet small and white and not quite that:

A waving, already no longer meant for me,
followed by lightly echoing waves –, all
but inexplicable: a plum tree perhaps
out of which a cuckoo, hastily, flew away.

 

 

For other poems by Rilke, visit – http://www.poemhunter.com/rainer-maria-rilke/