The limits

of longing

A re-post from a long time ago:

Go to the Limits of Your Longing
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.
~

Nancy Ruff said this in class, years ago, and I still remember when she said it:

“Bodies that laugh so hard they cannot hold form. Nothing is so beautiful.”

photo by Glen Kalen.

xo,
Jo