Book of Hours I,14. by Rainer Maria Rilke

I, 14
You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each assent.

So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it’s not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.



Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours, 1905
translated from the German by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, 2005

There are moments
in moist love
when heaven
is jealous of what
we on earth
can do.
  -Hafiz