Mountain Spring Corn Lilies & Rilke's IMPERMANENCE

CLIFF CREGO | Mountain Spring Corn Lilies (Veratrum veridis (true black = roots)

Mountain Spring Corn Lilies (Veratrum viride) [click photo for next . . . ]
(veratrum =- truly black (rhizomes) + viride = green (flowers)),
Mysterious deadly poisonous weedly circumpolar native; invades and
colonizes overgrazed land above 1300 m, both in Alps & N. America . . .
Eagle Cap Wilderness On the road in the American Northwest.

[ double-click to plays / or download here ]

IMPERMANENCE—a late poem from
the German by Rainer Maria Rilke

Driftsand of the hours. Quietly disappearing,
continuously, even the happily consecrated design.
Life blows away, always: pillars already rise
without connection, carrying nothing but empty air.

And yet Decay: is it really more sad than the fountain's
fall back into the water's mirror, sparkled with shimmering?
We hold Change for ourselves between the teeth,
so that he may fully see us with his observing eyes.

Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Cliff Crego)

Vergänlichkeit

Flugsand der Stunden. Leise fortwährende Schwindung
auch noch des glücklich gesegneten Baus.
Leben weht immer. Schon ragen ohne Verbindung
die nicht mehr tragenden Säulen heraus.

Aber Verfall: ist er trauriger als der Fontäne
Rückkehr zum Spiegel, den sie mit Schimmer bestaubt?
Halten wir uns dem Wandel zwischen die Zähne,
daß er uns völlig begreift in sein schauendes Haupt.

| download mp3 Impermanence / Vergänglichkeit [4.1 Mb] |

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Please visit my picture-poems.com LIVING WATER
print gallery. Above is a set of 37 recent images.
(Mouseover controls.)

I might just mention here, following the ethical principle,
First, do no harm, I never use cars or snowmachines. I
do everything on foot, bike or ski. I think this in a
deep and direct way affects my work, and how I see
the world. So all the photos above were approached
on foot, including all the in between spaces, sometimes
involving journeys of weeks or months.

I would not want to work any other way.

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New English translations
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