Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

It's a good thing I never got around to Rilke during college because I would have been insufferable!  My friend Barbara gave me a few of volumes of poetry when she moved and I especially enjoyed these two translations by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.  They throw out the rhyme scheme in favor of a more modern sound.  For those who don't read German, they've kept the first line as the title for the translated verse.  Please forgive me my missing umlaut on ware:

Wenn ich gewachsen ware irgendwo

If I had grown in some generous place -
if my hours had opened in ease -
I would make you a lavish banquet
My hands wouldn't clutch at you like this,
so needy and so tight.

Then I'd have dared to squander you,
you Limitless Now.
I'd have tossed you into the ringing air
like a ball that someone leaps for and catches
with hands outstretched.

I would have painted you: not on the wall
but in one broad sweep across heaven.
I'd have portrayed you brashly:
as mountain, as fire, as a wind
howling from the desert's vastness

Ich bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug

I am too alone in the world, yet not along enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing -
just as it is

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones -
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed
for where I am closed, I am false
I want to stay clear in your sight

I would describe myself like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I've come to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime'
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.