# Every Angel is terrifying

By [Compossible - that which can live together](https://paragraph.com/@compossible) · 2024-06-24

poetry, ai-art

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> Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angels’  
> Orders? and even if one of them pressed me  
> suddenly to his heart: I’d be consumed  
> in his more potent being. For beauty is nothing  
> but the beginning of terror, which we can still barely endure,  
> and while we stand in wonder it coolly disdains  
> to destroy us. Every Angel is terrifying.
> 
> (Rilke)

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https://poetrysociety.org

The First Elegy
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Placing poetry at the crossroads of American life since 1910.





](https://poetrysociety.org/poems/the-first-elegy)

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Every Angel is terrifying, AI-art

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*Originally published on [Compossible - that which can live together](https://paragraph.com/@compossible/every-angel-is-terrifying)*