Some Rilke medicine

I love the poetry of Rilke.   I have been nourished and soothed by it for years, so I was so happy when yesterday a copy of Rilke’s Book of Hours that I put a request in for, turned up at my library.   I already have several favourite poems from it.   None of them have titles so I will just share this one from page 51 that spoke to my heart and soul.

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.