smokingboot

So we spent it in the most perfect way, found ourselves a labyrinthine bookshop, complete with cafe and pastels de nata, and oohed together over beautiful acquisitions. I was with the same friend who sent me the Rilke poems. Now I bought another, to compare the tones of interpretation from Stephen Mitchell to J.B Leishman, I find the latter more tripping and loose, lighter of tone, and fell in love with the sweet faltering words of Gabriel in Annuciation:

You are not nearer God than we;
he’s far from everyone.
And yet your hands most wonderfully
reveal his benison.
From woman’s sleeves none ever grew
so ripe, so shimmeringly:
I am the day, I am the dew,
you, Lady, are the Tree.

Pardon, now my long journey’s done,
I had forgot to say
what he who sat as in the sun,
grand in his gold array,
told me to tell you, pensive one
(space has bewildered me).
I am the start of what’s begun,
you. Lady, are the Tree.

I spread my wings out wide and rose,
the space around grew less;
your little house quite overflows
with my abundant dress.
But still you keep your solitude
and hardly notice me:
I’m but a breeze within the wood,
you, Lady, are the Tree.

The angels tremble in their choir,
grow pale, and separate:
never were longing and desire
so vague and yet so great.
Something perhaps is going to be
that you perceived in dream.
Hail to you! for my soul can see
that you are ripe and teem.

You lofty gate, that any day
may open for your good:
you ear my longing songs assay,
my word - I know now -lost its way
In you as in a wood.

And thus your last dream was designed
to be fulfilled by me.
God looked at me: he made me blind...

You, Lady, are the Tree.

Enjoying ourselves so much, nonetheless that day had its shadow in the shape of bad news. Another good friend went to see her doctor with a back pain and came out needing an emergency heart bypass.The posse's ready to be helpful, and the moment her husband needs a break, we'll be at her bedside. But said friend is my age, maybe younger. She's clocked a few more city miles, had children etc, but still, makes one think and value those beautiful bookstore days even more.
Bbut I suddenly find myself in a situation where I have got to be a proper grown up. I must detach and get on.