Need some help finding

[MuseRider]

a poem that I heard in the 70's and kept in my heart for many years. Now I can't even recall enough to find it on the Internet.

It is Rilke. It is about love. It speaks about how one loves someone even or especially when they can see them when they are separate. It is not long, it is not terribly complex but it is driving me crazy since I have a need for it.

I remember (I think but who really knows now?) that there was a line....while we are separate one from the other.

Help if you can or you can PM me with what you think it might be.

Thanks ahead of time.

[barbtries]

1. is it this?

Love Song

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws *one* voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

Rainer Maria Rilke

this was read at my daughter's funeral by one of the four young men heartbroken by her death.

[MuseRider]

2. barbtries

No, that is not it but that is truly beautiful.

"While we are separate, one from the other" something like that. While looking for it I noticed that many of his poems are similar and knowing nothing about poetry I did not ever know that he wrote groups of similar poems. He used that line, or something very similar in many of them.

Thank you. Thank you especially because that had to be a difficult memory to bring up, I did not know about your daughter. :hug: I am sorry. I hope you have been able to find some peace. :hug:

[barbtries]

3. thanks muserider

it did bring up some tears, but no worries. i put the poetry board on my list of boards and never went to it until today, and the first thing i clicked on was this. somewhat ironic. i'm glad i was given the opportunity to revisit that beautiful poem. when gabe read it at her funeral i was entirely unfamiliar and had to search it out to even learn it was Rilke.

did you ever find the one you were looking for?

[MuseRider]

4. I don't know if you are still around

this group but I never did find the one I was looking for. It is OK. Someday I will remember more, you know how that is, and I will find it.

Again thank you, revisiting something like that can be both good and bad. I hope someday soon it will be less bad for you.

[dgibby]

5. Here's a site that might help.

Good luck.

http://www.poemhunter.com/rainer-maria-rilke/

Oops! I forgot the link! Duh!