Saturday, June 22, 2019

many shapes










You come and go. The doors swing closed 
ever more gently, almost without a shudder. 
Of all those who move through the quiet houses, 
you are the quietest. 

We become so accustomed to you, 
we no longer look up 
when your shadow falls over the book we are reading 
and makes it glow. For all things 
sing you: at times 
we just hear them more clearly. 

Often when I imagine you 
your wholeness cascades into many shapes. 
You run like a herd of luminous deer 
and I am dark, I am forest. 

You are a wheel at which I stand, 
whose dark spokes sometimes catch me up, 
revolve me nearer to the center. 
Then all the work I put my hand to 
widens from turn to turn. 



~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from Love Poems to God, 
The Book of Monastic Life



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