My heart needed this poem today. Perhaps yours does too?
“I Believe in All That Has Never Yet Been Spoken”
Rainer Maria Rilke
English version by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
One Response
A favorite poem from a favorite book. I was working for Joanna Macy when she and Anita were having such a delightful time on these translations. With reason. My all-time favorite is “god speaks to each of us as he makes us…”