Poetry


Since the beginning of 2026, I have been an active member of the monthly meeting group "Literary Lunches Kefalonia," which comprises mostly English-speaking hobby writers. These meetings have inspired me to write several short texts in English.

At one meeting, the task was to find a poem that would inspire a short story and then present it. 
I chose Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "The Swan" (translation and original see below). 

The short story I was inspired to write by the poem is of no interest here, but interestingly, before I even wrote my text, the following thoughts came to mind:

The theme for this meeting reminds me of what I call “One of the big problems of my life”. As a writer and reader since childhood, born in Germany in 1958, married to an Irish man and living amongst more or less British-socialised friends on a Greek island, I experience this problem, which I say in a non-offensive way, almost daily. What is it about?

The first poetic English literature I´ve read, still being a child, was that written by Lord Byron, the man who lived in the area where I live today, and who had the same view from his kitchen window to Mount Aínos as I have today.

I also read Shakespeare, although in German translation; I would have read the Brontë-sisters, if it had interested me, or Jane Austen for the same reason. I even tried James Joyce´s Ulysses – exactly: pages one to four. After that, I gave up.

I´ve read Robinson Crusoe, visited Treasure Island, indulged in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and enjoyed Pygmalion.

On the other side:

Neither my husband nor most of the English people I met would have read a poem or a drama by Goethe (except “Faust”, perhaps), a novel by Christa Wolf or poems by Eva Strittmatter or Rainer Maria Rilke.

This is, as I call it, the “Beatles-Effect”: All of us Germans, either from the East or the West, know the Beatles, but only a handful of non-Germans would know, for example, any German, especially East German, Musicians or songs … okay, except the 99 Balloons by Nena. The same goes for literature.

This is not an accusation, just an observation.

After a long period of contemplating, for this challenge I chose a poem by the still very popular Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926).

Since none of the available translations on the Internet satisfied me in meaning and in form, I made my own English translation, the first I have ever done. Translating this Rilke poem was also one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Here is the poem, in as much the same rhythm and meaning as Rilke wrote it:

 

The Swan      (translated from German by Marina Müller McKenna)


To go forth through what remains undone,

Through this heavy toil, and as if bound,

Likes the clumsy treading of the swan.


And our dying, our no-longer-apprehension

Of the ground on which we daily stand

Likes him, lowering with anxious tension


into waters: gently, happily receiving,

which, replenishing and still preceding,

do retreat beneath him, wave by wave.


while he, infinitely quiet and sure,

regally and ever more mature,

deigns to pass through, ever more composed.



R.M.Rilke    Der Schwan

 

Diese Mühsal, durch noch Ungetanes

schwer und wie gebunden hinzugehn,

gleicht dem ungeschaffnen Gang des Schwanes.

 

Und das Sterben, dieses Nichtmehrfassen

jenes Grunds, auf dem wir täglich stehn,

seinem ängstlichen Sich-Niederlassen —:

 

in die Wasser, die ihn sanft empfangen

und die sich, wie glücklich und vergangen,

unter ihm zurückziehn, Flut um Flut;

 

während er unendlich still und sicher

immer mündiger und königlicher

und gelassener zu ziehn geruht.