ALT Stack of books I’ve written since 2020, from the top: An Absence of Sea, Schism Blue, If I Had Not Seen Their Sleeping Faces, Disembodied, Under the Sign of the Labyrinth

ALT ... rain and rain, without stop yesterday, and just now it's beginning anew. Looking straight ahead, you'd think: it's going to snow. But last night I was awakened by the presence of moonlight in a corner above my rows of books; a spot that did not shine but covered a place on the wall like a patch of aluminum. And the room was full of cold night all the way into the corners; one could tell, lying in bed, that it was also under the wardrobe, under the chest of drawers and around the objects without any space in between, all around the brass chandeliers, which looked very cold. But the morning was bright. A broad east wind invading us with a developed front, because he finds the city so spacious. Rilke, Letters on Cézanne; tr. Joel Agee

ALT [presumably mid-July 1924] Dear Herr Doktor: I'm returning the book to you with thanks, please forgive me for not looking you up. I hardly think I could talk about Franz right now, and I'm sure you won't want to speak with me about him at this time either. With your permission, I'll let you know before I come to Prague in September. Please remember me kindly and please convey my best wishes to your wife, whom I once probably wronged without intending to. When you have the opportunity, please make sure my letters which belonged to Franz are burned; I trust you will do so, although of course this is nothing important. His manuscripts and diaries (not at all intended for me, since they were written before he knew me, about fifteen large notebooks) are here with me and, should you need them, are at your disposal. This is as he wished; he asked me not to show them to anyone but you and then only after he died. Perhaps you already know them in part.

ALT The Ninth Elegy; translated by Stephen Mitchell