The iPhone Arts: The Cemetery Project - Marianne Rieter, part II

Last Saturday we featured the first part of Marianne’s interpretation of the Trinity Church, Protestant Cemetery II, located in Berlin, Germany. As we continue with our visit, we are treated not only to her visual childhood odyssey, but also to her reliving that childhood. While things have changed in the years, it still possesses its beauty and charms of those days, now reflected in her photographs.

Walls with warm earthy textural tones reveal their age along side of climbing ivy. Hydrangeas tower along side, reaching towards the sky above, where plates with individuals names announcing their life span are mounted.

The Cemetery II of Trinity Church - Part Two

by Marianne Rieter

The Wonderful Visit

by H.G. Wells

The afterglow of the summer sunset in the north-west darkens into night and the angel sleeps, dreaming himself back in the wonderful world where it is always light, and everyone is happy, where fire does not burn and ice does not chill; where rivulets of starlight go streaming through the amaranthine meadows, out to the seas of peace. He dreams, and it seems to him that once more his wings flow with a thousand colors and flash through the crystal air of the world from which he has come.

Translation

Der Wunderschöne Besuch

von H.G. Wells

Das Abendrot des sommerlichen Sonnenuntergangs im Nordwesten verdunkelt sich langsam, und der Engel schläft und kehrt im Traum zurück in die wunderbare Welt, wo es immer Licht ist und wo jeder glücklich ist, wo einen Feuer nicht verbrennt und Eis nicht frieren lässt; wo Bäche von Sternenlicht durch die amarantroten Wiesen fließen, hinaus in die Meere des Friedens. Er träumt, und es scheint ihm, als erstrahlten seine Flügel noch einmal von tausend Farben und blitzten in der kristallklaren Luft jener Welt, aus der er gekommen war.

In a Graveyard

By John Hay

In the dewy depths of the graveyard

I lie in the tangled grass,

And watch, in the sea of azure,

The white cloud-islands pass.

The birds in the rustling branches

Sing gayly overhead;

Gray stones like sentinel spectres

Are guarding the silent dead.

The early flowers sleep shaded

In the cool green noonday glooms;

The broken light falls shuddering

On the cold white face of the tombs.

Without, the world is smiling

In the infinite love of God,

But the sunlight fails and falters

When it falls on the churchyard sod.

On me the joyous rapture

Of a heart's first love is shed,

But it falls on my heart as coldly

As sunlight on the dead.

Die Duineser Elegien

von Rainer Maria Rilke

von Die erste Elegie

Freilich ist es seltsam, die Erde nicht mehr zu bewohnen,
   kaum erlernte Gebräuche nicht mehr zu üben,
   Rosen, und andern eigens versprechenden Dingen
   nicht die Bedeutung menschlicher Zukunft zu geben;
   das, was man war in unendlich ängstlichen Händen,
   nicht mehr zu sein, und selbst den eigenen Namen
   wegzulassen wie ein zerbrochenes Spielzeug.
   Seltsam, die Wünsche nicht weiterzuwünschen. Seltsam,
    alles, was sich bezog, so lose im Raume
   flattern zu sehen. Und das Totsein ist mühsam
   und voller Nachholn, daß man allmählich ein wenig
   Ewigkeit spürt. Aber Lebendige machen
   alle den Fehler, daß sie zu stark unterscheiden.
      Engel (sagt man) wüßten oft nicht, ob sie unter
      Lebenden gehn oder Toten. Die ewige Strömung
      reißt durch beide Bereiche alle Alter
  immer mit sich und übertönt sie in beiden.

Translation

The Duino Elegies

by Rainer Maria Rilke

from The First Elegy

     True, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,

       to use no longer customs scarcely acquired,
       not to interpret roses, and other things
   that promise so much, in terms of a human future;
       to be no longer all that one used to be
     in endlessly anxious hands, and to lay aside
       even one’s proper name like a broken toy.
       Strange, not to go on wishing one’s wishes. Strange,
       to see all that was once relation so loosely fluttering
       hither and thither in space. And it’s hard, being dead,
         and full of retrieving before one begins to perceive
         a little eternity. - All of the living, though,
       make the mistake of drawing too sharp distinctions.
       Angels (it’s said) would be often unable to tell
     whether they moved among living or dead. The eternal
       torrent whirls all the ages through either realm
       for ever, and sounds above their voices in both.