Feb 2020
I don’t know how to love the questions
that blast in brawling on wild winds lashing
the sirens of warning that road rivers are rising
and goodness is vanquished—
the single certainty of more
and too much as the earth spins
off its axis.
I do know how to be still
and listen in warm morning sunlight
to the wisdom of women who tell me
that hope looks like armies of beings wielding
sunflowers and parsnip, fishtails
and dust mops singing songs of our mothers
claiming our birthright, until hearts
find earth’s drum beat, songs
turn to thunder, until groundswell—
and the many are one.
I know how to hold a long gaze
squint far into the distance
until I can
see
it
that blast in brawling on wild winds lashing
the sirens of warning that road rivers are rising
and goodness is vanquished—
the single certainty of more
and too much as the earth spins
off its axis.
I do know how to be still
and listen in warm morning sunlight
to the wisdom of women who tell me
that hope looks like armies of beings wielding
sunflowers and parsnip, fishtails
and dust mops singing songs of our mothers
claiming our birthright, until hearts
find earth’s drum beat, songs
turn to thunder, until groundswell—
and the many are one.
I know how to hold a long gaze
squint far into the distance
until I can
see
it
Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet
"I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
"I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
