Faded One by Rainer Maria Rilke

translated by Len Krisak (May 2014)

As if she had just died: she wears—

that lightly—both her shawl and gloves.

A fragrance from her chest of drawers

has driven out the scent she loves

and knew herself by, long ago.

She asks no more who she might be

(a distant relative). As though

bemused, she wanders aimlessly,

tidying up the timorous room                                            

she prettifies and shows such care,

just on the chance that all this time,                     

that same young girl’s still living there.

_____________________

Len Krisak has published in The London Magazine, The Oxonian Review, PN Review, Standpoint, Agni, The Antioch Review, The Sewanee Review, The Hudson Review, The Dark Horse, Agenda, The Hopkins Review, Commonweal, Literary Imagination, The Oxford Book of Poems on Classical Mythology, and others. His latest book is Virgil’s Eclogues, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Forthcoming: The Carmina of Catullus, Carcanet Press, 2015, Afterimage, Measure Press, 2014, Rilke: New Poems, Boydell & Brewer, 2015 and Ovid: The Amores and The Ars Amatoria, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

To comment on this poem, please click here.

To help New English Review continue to publish original translations of classic poetry such as this, please click here.

If you have enjoyed this poem and want to read more by Len Krisak, please click here.