[You darkness, that I come from,] by Rainer Maria Rilke

[You darkness, that I come from,]
Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Robert Bly

You darkness, that I come from,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes
a circle of light for everyone,
and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything:
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them! —
powers and people —

and it is possible a great energy
is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

SELECTED BY ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER

I didn’t love this poem when I first read it. Not the second time, either. Or the third. I had no desire to read or think about darkness. But then, years later, I heard it sung  by New York Voices on a remarkable album, Visions Within, featuring music composed by Robert Lepley, and I sang along with the album enough times the poem lived inside me. And then, when I was going through a particularly dark time in my life, the poem kept showing up on my lips, in my thoughts, in my heart. It insisted on itself, really. And I would find myself speaking it and singing it when I was walking alone or driving in the car or not sleeping in the middle of the night. And in this way, the poem invited me to not only meet the darkness, both literal and metaphorical, but also to fall in love with it. How impossible that had felt before. And then, it became imperative. Generative. Generous. Life-saving. Because of this poem I began walking outside in the dark. I began turning toward the mysterious, uncomfortable parts of myself and the world that most frightened me. What a gift this poem has been for my growth as a human.

I almost didn’t choose this poem because I always share this poem when asked for my favorite. I thought, Shouldn’t I try to share a different favorite? I have hundreds of favorites! But this is the one that transformed the way I engage with the world. Nothing short of miraculous, this poem. There are other translations I have read that are, I believe, truer to Rilke’s German original—I want to point to the astonishing work of translator Mark S. Burrows, but this is the version that first found its way into my heart, so this is the version I am sharing.

I also want to share this poem I wrote thanking Rilke for this piece. (And here’s a version read by Meryl Streep.)

ABOUT ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher, speaker and writing facilitator who co-hosts Emerging Form, a podcast on creative process. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her recent collections are All the Honey and The Unfolding. In 2024, she became poet laureate for Evermore, helping others explore grief and love through poetry. Since 2006, she’s written a poem a day, sharing them on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. One-word mantra: Adjust.

Also check out:

• Podcast on creative process: Emerging Form
• TEDx: The Art of Changing Metaphors
• Poetry album on “Endarkenment”: Dark Praise