To Be the Bell

 

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower

       Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

       Translated by Joanna Macy

Listen

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

         

                       Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Joanna Macy died this week but her wisdom did not.

When I sit with her writing or her brilliant translations of Rilke, I am blanketed by a sense of interconnectedness, interbeing, which is both disturbing and comforting. At least it reminds me of my/our communal responsibility (response-ability) even in times of harsh and random travail.

And so I return to the bell tower and an image which pierces the sky and sounds regardless of expectations below. Its sound itself is the response to a “battering” which can only be silenced if its physical being is destroyed. The song rings true and eternal, however. 

“be the mystery” to me means to be the bell within the darkness, to ring with each battering as though to ring with each intentionally gentle touch. The song is the same. The soul of our selves rings like the flow of rushing water. 

I am. I am that song, I am that flow, I am, I am, I am.

It is the truth of breath, ours and theirs, inspiring and expiring. This is eternal truth.