Prayer

“Prayer”

I spoke of you as of one closely related,

toward whom my life wanders on a hundred paths.

I named you, whom all children knew,

the one all the strings were strung upon,

and for you I have become dark and quiet.

I named you the nearest to all my nights,

the most intimate secret of my evenings,

and you are the one no one could grasp

had you not been thought out from eternity.

And you are the one in whom I’ve not erred,

the one I entered like a familiar house.

Your growing now exceeds me:

you are the most becoming one who will be.

Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Worpswede Diary”

(October 4, 1900); translated by Mark S. Burrows (2011)