Today in Rilke he notes that the sense of being “harmless in nature is lost to us”. That its quiet presence is “overwhelmed by our knowledge of the unspeakable human fate that, night and day, unfolds.” 

At first, I thought he was referring again to the inevitable end of our lives, but on looking up the date, Sept. 9, 1914, realized that it perhaps instead referred to the war. It had begun in July, and by Sept. 9, the German army was approaching Paris. In the following days, the Allies were successful in pushing back the German advance in the First Battle of the Marne. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/365968/First-Battle-of-the-Marne

Jan. 11, 2014

Whether war or peace,
there is always human destruction
of the land. We drive nature,
its flora and fauna, to seek
always shrinking habitat,
then begin to look elsewhere
for new territory for ourselves.

Our mindset never forethought,
always after.

Managed Destruction (Photo credit: Harlz_)

–CAS