No one lives his life.
Disguised since childhood,
haphazardly assembled
from voices and fears and little pleasures,
We come of age as masks.
Our true face never speaks.
Somewhere there must be storehouses
where all these lives are laid away
like suits of armor or old carriages
or clothes hanging limply on the walls.
Maybe all paths lead there,
to the repository of unlived things.
And yet, though we strain
against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery;
All life is being lived.
Who is living it then?
Is it the things themselves?
Or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?
Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal each other?
Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances,
or streets, as they wind through time?
Is it the animals, warmly moving,
or the birds, that suddenly rise up?
Who lives it, then?
God, are you the one
who is living life?
"Love Poems to God," Rainier Maria Rilke
PS: It is not too late to decide to join the small group which begins this Monday evening at 6:30. This poem speaks eloquently of our much anticipated discussion in the group.
Love the poem Robyn, thanks for sharing it. I think that it fit perfectly with what I read this morning from Byron Katie's book, that life lives her, isn't that so freeing when you let yourself go into it! Hope you are well and warm.
ReplyDeleteHugs, Ginger