Thursday, September 22, 2011

...to trust our heaviness


 from Rilke's Book of Hours:
Wenn etwas mir vom Fenster fallt


How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing-
each stone,blossom,child-
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted,like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before it can fly.



14 comments:

  1. nice...perfect for the season change...much to be learned of nature...and ourselves

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  2. fantastic just like you.
    so we begin again.
    reinvent ourselves.
    smiles...

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  3. Wow, Suz!!! This was fantastic. I am going to look for that book. Are the rest of the pages filled with such wisdom as well?

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  4. It is always wise to respect earth's intelligence! A beautiful, thoughtful poem.

    Re: "The Pillars of the Earth" I believe it is one of the best books I have read in a long long time. Sinking into the medieval world and living there was easy! I was sorry to finsih the 1000pages! Well worth time! I can still feel this world and return to favourite pages! Thanks for your comment on my blog! I wanted to review it poetically to give the essence of the book without giving away all its mesmerising secrets!

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  5. Teri, the subtitle :
    Love poems to God

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  6. Interesting perspective; wise philosophy.

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  7. I must agree with John, good philosophy sister!

    JJRod'z

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  8. Wisdom so beautifully expressed! The last line is just the perfect teaching thought.

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  9. Deep sigh of contentment and hope.

    Thank you for sharing this.

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  10. I don't believe gravity any longer has any power over Suz the new svelte Warrior Woman! :-)

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