Rainer Writes of Rain

     Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian writer of the early 20th century, is known for his mystical verse and the prose work Letters to a Young Poet. In the latter, Rilke begins a correspondence with a poet who asked for advice by saying "Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody." Then Rilke wrote nine more letters in an attempt to help the young versifier. Rilke was large, he contained multitudes.

Sepia was all the rage back then.

     Rilke's mystical bent made him a popular favorite the the twilight of the 20th century, when the New Age movement came to the fore. His work even started appearing as plot points in Hollywood movies. In this clip, Robin Williams uses a Ouija board and a card catalog (!) to discover a Rilke poem that helpes him understand a catatonic patient: Robert DeNiro.

    
      Ferguson associate director Elizabeth recommends this dose of RMR -- one that accords with the calendar. 


     IN APRIL

     translated by Jessie Lemont

     Again the woods are odorous, the lark
     Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
     That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark
     Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.

     After long rainy afternoons an hour
     Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
     Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
     And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.

     Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
     By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
     And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
     In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.