Translating Rilke, I.55

From The Book of Hours, I.55
Much of this translation was taken from Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. I also translated several additional lines they left out.
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The poets have scattered you
   (a storm tore through their stammering)
   but I want to gather you up again into a vessel
   that could make you glad.

I wander through the winds that churn you:
   that churn you a thousand times over.
I retrieve all the pieces of you that I find:
   from the blind man who used you for his drinking cup,
   from the butler who hid you in the back of the closet,
   from the beggar who held you out to passers-by.
Sometimes the largest parts of your soul I found in a child.

You see, I am a Collector.

One who, like a shepherd, hides behind the back of his hand
   so that you don't see him watching you
   (you would like to evade his notice, turning instead
    into the stranger's sites)

One who dreams of making you complete, and, in so doing
   completes himself.

Translating Rilke, I.3

From The Book of Hours, I.3
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I have many cossacked brothers living in the South:
   their spectres rise through cloistered laurel.
Through humanity ablaze in their Madonnas I recognize
   the ember of God - and often dream of young Titians.

But when I peer over the edge of myself,
   God - my God - is dark.
A knot of a hundred buried roots drinking in silence.

All I know is that I arise out of this ferment whose
   silence stills my branches
   except for the rustle of the Wind.

Acknowledgment to Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy in Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God for the image of "ferment" from Rilke's word choice "Waerme".