Rilke's Stroll

Worpswede Forest, outside, daylight, stroll. My Russian friend Tania was the one who brought me to  follow in Rilke’s footsteps. I wondered about the poet’s state of mind when he was walking these paths. I found no trace of it in his work from those years, but the answers could be found in his correspondence. In late summer, the year of his first stay in Worpswede, Lou Andreas-Salomé had just left him… While it was composed before this event, the poem chosen profoundly echoes my life at the time of this stroll, the photos I took, and my Russian friends who walked and conversed with me. Knowing that this is the place where Rilke found new love, these words bring the forest alive with hope. Brenda Hoffman