In some summers there is so much fruit, <br />the peasants decide not to reap any more. <br />Not having reaped you, oh my days, <br />my nights, have I let the slow flames <br />of your lovely produce fall into ashes? <br /> <br />My nights, my days, you have borne so much! <br />All your branches have retained the gesture <br />of that long labor you are rising from: <br />my days, my nights. Oh my rustic friends! <br /> <br />I look for what was so good for you. <br />Oh my lovely, half-dead trees, <br />could some equal sweetness still <br />stroke your leaves, open your calyx? <br /> <br />Ah, no more fruit! But one last time <br />bloom in fruitless blossoming <br />without planning, without reckoning, <br />as useless as the powers of millenia. <br /> <br /> <br />Translated by A. Poulin<br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/growing-old-22/
