What Survives
What Survives - meaning Summary
Acts Leave Lasting Traces
Rilke's poem questions disappearance and suggests some actions persist beyond their moment. Small harms or gentle touches—like a wounded bird or a caress—leave traces that continue in the world and within us. The poem shifts to a metaphysical image: deeds do not survive as gestures but as transformed presences that rearm or adorn the doer and are taken up by a higher order. It offers consolation through survivorship of effects.
Read Complete AnalysesWho says that all must vanish? Who knows, perhaps the flight of the bird you wound remains, and perhaps flowers survive caresses in us, in their ground. It isn't the gesture that lasts, but it dresses you again in gold armor --from breast to knees-- and the battle was so pure an Angel wears it after you.
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