Book Of Hours Rilke Novels & Stories

Stories of tides that never forgot. One morning in early March, when the almond trees were heavy with blossom again, she found an old envelope tucked inside the pages of a book he had been reading the winter before he died. The book was a worn copy of Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, the spine cracked open to poem fifteen. The envelope was yellowed, unsealed, addressed to her in his careful handwriting. She carried it to the terrace. Sat in his chair. Opened it slowly.

Whispers from the Hollow That night, I dreamt of fireless light. A space with no sky. No time. Just echoes. And in the center Arlen. He wasn’t aged. He wasn’t afraid. He was… still. “Ophelia,” he said, though his mouth never moved. “You’ve opened too much. Left too many doors ajar.” I stepped toward him. “You went looking for truth,” I said. “What did you find?” He turned his hand over.

I said, grabbing the book off of the shelf and showing Kai proudly. That was a bit easier than I thought it would be. That was at least reassuring. He took the book from me and flipped through it, confusion lining his features. “Our next clue is a book of poetry?” “Yes. No, not exactly,” I said, biting my lip and flipping the book open until I got to the right poem. “This is a book of poems from the infamous Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. My favorite poem is this one.” I showed him. I was not huge on poetry, but Rilke was a complete genius with his words, and I would be an idiot to ignore that genius.

A single armchair squats in the corner, worn at the arms, a reading lamp bent over it like a question. Julian Croft has a hidden library. The ice king, the man who dismantles empires before breakfast, reads poetry in secret. I walk the shelves. Keats. Frost. Neruda. Dickinson. And Rilke. A whole row of Rilke, different translations, some so loved the covers are mended with tape. I ease a thin volume from the shelf. Letters to a Young Poet. Dark blue cloth, frayed at the corners. I open it and recognize his handwriting instantly. Sharp, angular, the same hand that signed my contract at 4:52 AM.

I waited and then came a riddle. Sorry for the delay. The mental image of your naked self cavorting, throwing herself across the room, and in a pool of blood, bottom to the ceiling and cradle to the wall, was too much for me, but a poor man. I skipped to page 75 and did a Florizel. Perhaps we should try again tomorrow. (Now) Torpid Tannhäuser I found the book, which had slipped behind my writing table during my fall, and opened page 75. I read:

"What is this?" She picked up the note and started to read it slowly. "When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars,

With tears in her eyes, her form dissolved gently, like smoke into the wind. --- Back in the waking world, Rosalie’s body jerked slightly inside the salt circle. Her eyes fluttered open, and she held her cheeks. She was back. In front of her, the book lay in the middle of the circle. She reached forward and picked it up. It was empty. Every page blank. She turned them slowly, one by one. Elerein was gone.

" He finishes. The room is very quiet. I know this poem. Rainer Maria Rilke, 1905. Two worlds that must have brushed briefly at some point, because we share enough history that they bleed together. "You like it," I say. "Very much." He sets the book down, and a vine uncoils from the wall and drifts toward me like it can't help itself. I crook a finger and it comes the rest of the way, settling into my palm, warm and faintly alive. "I'll move your seat forward if you'd like," he says. "Better visibility." "I don't mind where I sit." I wind the vine loosely around my fingers. "Just don't put me too far from Arlo."

It was the same poetry collection they’d once shared on a rainy night Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. A note was tucked between the pages. “You don’t have to keep chasing redemption. Some of us are already forgiving you in silence.” He stared at the words for a long time, feeling something shift inside him. Not relief not yet. But peace, maybe. He sank onto the couch, book in hand, the sunlight falling over his shoulders. He’d thought closure meant forgetting. But now he saw it differently it was remembering without wanting to return. He opened the book to the page she’d marked. The verse read:

I close the door quietly. I spend an hour in the smaller library looking at the books. He has everything. Fiction. Nonfiction. Art books. History. A whole shelf of poetry that looks like it has never been touched. I pull out a volume of Mary Oliver and flip through it. Someone has dog-eared a page. I read the poem. "Wild Geese." I read it twice.