September 14, 2001
Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all the other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one ... It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.

— Rainer Maria Rilke
trans. by Robert Bly

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