Rilke’s Book of Hours

I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every moment holy.

I am too tiny in this world,
and not tiny enough just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.

I want my own will,
and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action;
and in those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times,
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.

I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.

I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
and I want my grasp of things to be
true before you.

I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship that carried me
through the wildest storm of all.

November 2014 – Florence, Italy.

Jealous Of The Angels – Jenn Bostic

“Life goes on …”
This become my motto since the day dad gone to be with the Lord.

Life is too fragile
No matter how careful you hold it
If it’s gone, it gone …
But, not my place to question,
Only God knows why …

 

Water for Elephants

“… a gaggle of old ladies is glued to the window at the end of the hall like children or jailbirds.
They’re spidery and frail, their hair as fine as mist.
Most of them are a good decade younger than me, and this astounds me.

Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.
There are five of them now, white headed old things huddled together and pointing crooked fingers at the glass.”

As for me, growing old together is the best feeling.
And there’s beauty in the crown of glory.

May 2015 – Seoul, South Korea.

Colley Cibber

Tea! Thou soft, thou sober
sage and verable liquid…
to whose glorious insipidity,
I owe the happiest moments of my life,
let me fall prostrate.