The Shadow They Have Cast
The more we frequent men, the blacker our thoughts; and when, to clarify them, we return to our solitude,
― Emil M. Cioran
we find there the shadow they have cast.
Rilke: Every Angel is Terrifying
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’
Rainer Maria Rilke , The Duino Elegies (“The First Elegy”), 1923.
Orders? and even if one of them
pressed me against his heart: I would be consumed
in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.