“Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower” by Rainer Maria Rilke

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Society, Spirituality, Society & Culture, Sociology, Culture, Science, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Social Sciences, On Being, Arts

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2022

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve noticed that many people have been seeking out this poem by Rilke on our website this week. It feels like a meditation and a salve for this fraught, uncertain moment in the world. So, we’re sharing it here as well. Rainer Maria Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist. His poem, “Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower,” is read here by Joanna Macy. It was translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows, and originally read in the On Being episode “A Wild Love for the World.” Watch a film version of this poem on our YouTube channel.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let this darkness be a bell tower, written by Reiner Maria Roca, translated by Joanna
0:09.6	Macy and Anita Barrow's and read by Joanna Macy.
0:21.0	Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
0:29.5	Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell and as you ring what batters you
0:41.0	becomes your strength.
0:44.9	Move back and forth into the change.
0:49.1	What's it like this intensity of pain?
0:54.1	If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
0:59.6	In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning
1:09.6	discovered there.
1:13.0	And if the world shall cease to hear you, say to the silent earth, I flow into the rushing
1:22.9	water speak, I am.

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