February 2008

Now you must go out into your heart

as onto a vast plain. Now

the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind

sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.

It is what you have.

Be earth now, and evensong.

Be the ground lying under that sky.

Be mosdest now, like a thing

ripened until it is real,

so that he who began it all

can feel you when he reaches for you.

- Rainer Maria Rilke