"Let no place in me hold itself closed..."

For some reason, reading poetry seems the perfect way to end the day. Rainer Maria Rilke's The Book of Hours is especially appropriate in the last, dark hours. Written at the turn of the last century, it is as powerful in the first decade of this one. I am quite taken with this particular poem, and I hope you are as mesmerized by it as I am this evening.

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing--
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones--
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let not place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. I, 13. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy, trans. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996, 2005.