Ich verrinne, ich verrinne

Posted July 2nd, 2012 by Erin under Poems, Quotes.

In our practice of Svadhyaya: the study of the sacred scriptures and of one’s self, we find echoes of what the scriptures help us to know, the right knowledge, all around us. After spending the last month in svadhyaya of the Katha Upanishads, Eileen shared this Rilke poem as an example of that echo.

Ich verrinne, ich verrinne

I’m slipping, I’m slipping away like sand

slipping through fingers.

All my cells are open, and all so thirsty.

I ache and swell in a hundred places, but

mostly in the middle of my heart.

I want to die. Leave me alone.

I feel I am almost there—

where the great terror

can dismember me.

Rilke


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