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.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

New thoughts, new year

Dear One,
Remember when you were small
Falling into your written name
Not from awe that it defined you
But that you exist in spite of it.
You are still that.
You are still,
Still are.

The preacher said
Almost off-handedly
"If you cannot be humble,
your marriage will not work."
The words sat beside me
in the harp hearse
flying through the blue-black night
over vast full fields
past tired Christmas lights
toward the stars.