Zen Chants in the West: Rilke’s Ninth Elegy

Rainer Maria Rilke is without a doubt one of the great gifts of the twentieth century to the world. This particular poem, the Ninth Elegy is chanted in some Zen centers together with more “traditional” Zen texts. Personally, I’d like to see some more of that.

Here’s how it begins in Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows translation.

Why, if it’s possible to come into existence
as laurel, say, a little darker green
than other trees, with ripples edging each
leaf (like a wind, smiling): why then
do we have to be human, and keep running from the fate
we are made for and long for?

Or, perhaps you’d like to hear Stephen Mitchell’s version?