More Rilke

This one speaks volumes about Rilkes understanding of child loss, particularly stillbirth I think:

You who never arrived

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment.

I wonder here if he is talking of his mother? He could be talking about any of us who blog and comment and support others who are grieving.

Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words

And I liked this bit of feminism

Letter to a young poet (letter 7)

Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being.