God Speaks

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, I 59

Solitude

I have scorched the sun
and let darkness take hold
so that I can neither see
nor be seen.

Speak

We come of age as masks.
Our true face never speaks.

-Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke's Book of Hours

For This Love

From the divine will we could not be farther;
Better off in the fate of star crossed lovers.
For this love, I willingly become a martyr.