Adam
by Rainer Maria Rilke
High above he stands, beside the many
saintly figures fronting the cathedral’s
gothic tympanum, close by the window
called the rose, and looks astonished at his
own deification which placed him there.
Erect and proud he smiles, and quite enjoys
this feat of his survival, willed by choice.
As labourer in the fields he made his start
and through his efforts brought to full fruition
the garden God named Eden. But where was
the hidden path that led to the New Earth?
God would not listen to his endless pleas.
Instead, He threatened him that he shall die.
Yet Adam stood his ground: Eve shall give birth.
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The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
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René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke ( 1875 – 1926). an Austrian poet and novelist of great influence, he was born in Prague, a city in the Austrian Empire now occupied by the ethnofascist Czech statelet. Rilke’s command of the German language is brilliant, both his prose and poems are intensely lyrical and some believe that his work is infused with mysticism.