Sunday, May 07, 2006

Rilke's Angel


Duino Elegies
--Rainer Maria Rilke

The Second Elegy

"...But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars
took one step down toward us: our own heart, beating higher and higher
would kill us...."

(This angel is, in fact, a "white dwarf butterfly." The nova star is the bright dot near the center, the cast-off cocoon is an ejected shell of gas. Apparently our sun will, in just 5 billion years, become itself a "white dwarf butterfly.") The angel's heart is the nova star, pulsing as it should, in the left side of her breast.

click it!

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