A Little More Time
program note
You darkening deep, how you endure the walls we make,
perhaps you will allow the cities another hour
and two hours for the churches and cloisters
and though exhausted, you still grant five to the redeemed
and seven hours to the workers;
before you return to forest, water, and flourishing wilderness,
in that great dreadful hour,
before you come back to claim
your uncompleted image,
give me just a little more time: I will love all things
as no one has loved them
until they blossom and are worthy of your name.
I ask but for seven days, seven
still unwritten and untouched by anyone,
seven pages of solitude.
I, to whom you give this book of seven days,
will long be bowed over its pages.
But In truth, your hand is holding me,
and you yourself will do the writing.
LE (freely translated from Rilke's original)
Du dunkelnder Grund, geduldig erträgst du die Mauern.
Und Vielleicht erlaubst du noch eine Stunde den Städten zu dauern
und gewährst noch zwei Stunden den Kirchen und einsamen Klöstern
und lässest fünf Stunden noch Mühsal allen Erlöstern
und siehst noch sieben Stunden das Tagwerk des Bauern–;
Eh du wieder Wald wirst und Wasser und wachsende Wildnis
in der Stunde der unerfasslichen Angst,
da du dein unvollendetes Bildnis
von all Dingen zurückverlangst.
Gieb mir noch eine kleine Weile Zeit: ich will die Dinge
wo wie keiner lieben
bis sie dir alle würdig sind und weit.
Ich will nur sieben Tage, sieben
auf die sich keiner noch geschrieben,
sieben Seiten Einsamkeit.
Wem du das Buch giebst, welches die umfasst,
der wird gebückt über den Blätern bleiben.
Es sie denn, dass du ihn in Händen hast,
um selbst zu schreiben.
Reiner Maria Rilke (from Das Stundenbuch)
This piece was composed in the spring of 2020, during the early days of what was to become an extended shutdown because of the pandemic. I had set myself a personal project of writing a short choral work each week, as our social activities became restricted. My commitment lasted for about two months, while, unfortunately, the pandemic had much more staying power.
A friend had pointed me to a poem of Rilke's, from his Book of Hours. That poem became the text for one of my early "Covid compositions." During the work on that composition I was also drawn to Du dunkelnder Grund, also from the Book of Hours. The text, written by Rilke in his mid-twenties (in 1900), seemed presciently relevant for our time. Ultimately, Rilke asks for "a little more time" before the earth returns to "forest, water, and flourishing wilderness." This plea reflects his concept of the Divine, which is rooted very much in nature -- what he refers to as "God" is a life force gradually coming into being -- the dark is a beautiful and potent thing -- hence "you darkening deep" in his opening line expresses the idea of a divine reality that is positive, emerging, and being constantly created.
The Book of Hours comes out of Rilke's first of two trips to Russia. Inspired both by the ubiquitous Orthodox iconography and the immense landscapes, and by his associations with Leo Tolstoy and other writers, Rilke sees nature and the world as a pantheistic consciousness slowly coming into existence. His concepts of "God" reflect an inversion of the common view -- for him God is not light but darkness; rather than Creator, God is being created. However one wishes to unpacks that view, there is certainly motivation in the idea that we are responsible for what is to come, that it is time for us to deal with the walls we have created, walls which limit the emerging divine creation; we are called, in Rilke's words, to "love all things, as no one has loved them." That challenge calls to us today, while the earth warms and warns around us. Yet, in his final lines he introduces a corrective to our hubris -- it is not we who will ultimately do the "writing" of this new reality; our work is controlled by a greater Hand.
-Leonard Enns