Status Updates From Diaries of a Young Poet

“Everything takes us. The good and that for which we have no name. But as we are continually being gripped by all that asserts its might above us, we begin to trust more and more the hands that do this to us every day... And someday the knowledge will come to us, when we have just given something its shape, that even with the darkest thing we say we do not mean Death, not Death at all, but Life.”

“The reddest roses never showed so red
as on that evening that was cloaked in rain.
I thought so long about your softest hair…
The reddest roses never showed so red.

...

The waters mirrored there a land of black
that very evening I found misting with rain;
and thus in your eyes I recognized myself…
the waters mirrored there a land of black.”

“In all my best hours I shall take your smiling as a city, a distant city that shines and is alive—I shall know that all this exists, that this city can be entered, that I have often beheld this island...but if you ask me, you will see me hesitate: I don’t know for certain whether the forest we walk through is not merely my mood—a dark, shadowy mood. Who knows: perhaps even Venice is only a feeling.”

:')

"You are not a goal for me; you are a thousand goals. You are everything, and I know you in everything..."

"I need not say: Forgive! For I ask that from you in every silence. I need not ask: Forget! For we want to remember these hours also, in which I tried to flee from you in shame; and on my blind flight I was always running toward you."

he was insane for this. pls i change my name to lou andreas-salome

My first reread of the year! I can't believe this man was just in his twenties when he wrote these stunning, wonderful pieces. Love me some Rilke!