This is longing

This is longing:  to dwell in the waves

and have no home anchored in time.

And these are wishes:  the quiet dialogue

of the day’s hours with eternity.

And this is life.  Until the loneliest

of hours rises from some yesterday,

and smiling differently than her sisters,

keeps silent in the face of the eternal.

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Mir zur Feier; in KA I, 64;

          translated by Mark S. Burrows (© 2012)