My heart has carried a great deal;
chains of causation, a thousand lies and countless sufferings.
Day by day, it continues to clench like a fist;
enclosed to all outside trappings, protected to the cold of winter.
At night and day, I hardly feel the outside;
only mere semblances and traces of feeling, touch and bliss.
I yearn for the days when I used to feel —
used to see how it was to breathe in all entirety —
flow with the grace of my body.
I yearn so much.
Yet in all my yearning, my heart closes itself to all it does not want --
pain, suffering, resistance, anger, agony, sadness.
How do I yearn and yet stay open?
Feel without enclosing?
Experience without succumbing?
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 10:48 AM UTC
My heart has carried a great deal;
chains of causation, a thousand lies and countless sufferings.
Day by day, it continues to clench like a fist;
enclosed to all outside trappings, protected to the cold of winter.
At night and day, I hardly feel the outside;
only mere semblances and traces of feeling, touch and bliss.
I yearn for the days when I used to feel —
used to see how it was to breathe in all entirety —
flow with the grace of my body.
I yearn so much.
Yet in all my yearning, my heart closes itself to all it does not want --
pain, suffering, resistance, anger, agony, sadness.
How do I yearn and yet stay open?
Feel without enclosing?
Experience without succumbing?
I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
