Every Angel is Terrifying

Favored first prodigies, creation's darlings,


mountain ranges, peaks, dawn-red ridges


of all genesis--pollen of a flowering godhead,


links of light, corridors, stairs, thrones.


spaces of being, shields of rapture, torrents


of unchecked feeling and then suddenly, singly,


mirrors: scooping their outstreamed beauty


back into their peerless faces.


For our part, when we feel, we evaporate, ah, we breathe


WORDS: from the Duino Elegies by Ranier Maria Rilke, The II Elegy.
Translated by Edward Snow
IMAGES: click for source