“Autumn” by Rainer Maria Rilke (1902)

Like “Entrance,” this short poem appeared in The Book of Pictures. As always with Rilke, he wants to go beyond the simple appearance of things and access the raw truth. He describes how in autumn everything is falling, not only the leaves from the trees, but also, somehow, the earth is falling from the stars. Yet there is some unnamed entity that holds all that falls tenderly in his hands. The implication is that nothing is lost or destroyed and even the cycles of change are held safely in a benevolent eternity.

“Evening” by Rainer Maria Rilke (1906)

This poem appeared in the second edition of The Book of Pictures in 1906. As in “Entrance,” the poet probes the full dimensions of his being. As evening comes, his sense of his own being becomes sharper and more distinctive. He seems to belong to both time and eternity; part of him is closed in (like the house he lives in), and another part is like the unboundedness of the night sky. Belonging to both spheres of life, he goes back and forth in each moment between these two realities, characterized as “stone” and “star.