Exposed on the Cliffs of the Heart
Exposed on the Cliffs of the Heart - meaning Summary
Isolation and Quiet Knowing
Rilke’s poem presents the heart as a barren cliff where language and feeling are reduced to a remote village and a single farmhouse. Despite the exposure and silence, an "unknowing plant" blooms, suggesting that unconscious openness can produce life where deliberate knowing yields quiet withdrawal. The poem contrasts instinctive vitality—animals and circling birds—with the solitary stillness of the self that has fully perceived its vulnerability.
Read Complete AnalysesExposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there, look: the last village of words and, higher, (but how tiny) still one last farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it? Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stoneground under your hands. Even here, though, something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air. But the one who knows? Ah, he began to know and is quiet now, exposed on the cliffs of the heart. While, with their full awareness, many sure-footed mountain animals pass or linger. And the great sheltered birds flies, slowly circling, around the peak's pure denial. - But without a shelter, here on the cliffs of the heart...
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