Barbara Duran

Rainer Maria Rilke - The Island. NORTHSEA

White Duran Project | Exhibition | Rome 2021


Only within is near; all else is far.
Within is tightly packed and every day,
Brimful with everything they cannot say.
The island is a much-too-little star

Space takes no notice of and silently
and dreadfully destroys as if unknown.
A thing unheard – a thing no one can see;
Alone –

It thinks all this will end in darkness – done.
And tries to plot its own self-blinded, cryptic
Course, outside of any scheme’s elliptic
Of planets, solar systems, or the sun.

The Island, by Rainer Maria Rilke,
Translated by Len Krisak,

Cambridge University Press 2015