DO NOT BE TROUBLED GOD
~ by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Do not be troubled, God, though they say “mine”
of all things that permit it patiently.
They are like wind that lightly strokes the boughs
and says: MY tree. ...
They will say "mine" as one will sometimes call
the prince his friend in speech with villagers,
this prince being very great--and far away. ...
They still say “mine,” and claim possession, though
each thing, as they approach, withdraws and closes;
a silly charlatan perhaps thus poses
as owner of the lightning and the sun.
And so they say: my life, my wife, my child,
my dog, well knowing all that they have style
their own: life, wife, child, dog, remain
shapes foreign and unknown,
that blindly groping they must stumble on.
This truth, be sure, only the great discern,
who long for eyes. The others WILL not learn
that in the beggary of their wandering
they cannot claim a bond with any thing,
but, driven from possessions they have prized,
not by their own belongings recognized,
they can OWN WIVES no more than they own flowers,
whose life is alien and apart from ours.
God, do not lose your equilibrium.
Even he who loves you and discerns you face
in darkness, when he trembles like a light
you breath upon, —he cannot own you quite.
And if at night one holds you closely pressed,
locked in his prayer so you cannot stray,
you are the guest
who comes, but not to stay.
God, who can hold you? To yourself alone
belonging, by no owner’s hand disturbed,
you are like unripened wine that unperturbed
grows sweeter and is all its own.
(from the Poems From the Book of Hours, New Directions Publishing, 1941)
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