Tag Archives: Rilke

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may what i do

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I caught this pink ski bunny carving her own path among the downhill racers we were watching.  On her pink helmet was a tuft of pink netting, the kind you’d find holding up a ballerina’s tutu!  She was a fearless little warrior in pink tulle.

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me.
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

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missives from the front

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I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:

a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.

—Rilke, Love Poems to God

A deep bow of gratitude to all of you who have commented on last week’s posts. I am touched and sustained that the words you find here are meaningful to you.

I’ve learned so much in this first week of the Chaplaincy program – not the least being the sad truth that institutionalized marginalization and the silencing of the self lives on strong and vibrant.   On a lighter note, there were indescribable moments of listening to Joanna Macy read Rilke! Barry, not a bra was left unshed in the house!

One more week to go!

Pray, burn incense, offer sacrifice!

Genju (perhaps…)