Rilke was an artmonk

In his 20’s, German poet Ranier Maria Rilke visited a Russian monastery. The private prayerbook that resulted is now published as his Book of Hours. From the Book of Monastic Life, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, Wenn es nur einmal so ganz stille wäre:

If only for once it were still.
If the not quite right and the why this
could be muted, and the neighbor’s laughter,
and the static my senses make—
if all of it didn’t keep me from coming awake—

Then in one vast thousandfold thought
I could think you up to where thinking ends.

I could possess you,
even for the brevity of a smile,
to offer you
to all that lives,
in gladness.

In his 20’s, German poet Ranier Maria Rilke visited a Russian monastery. The private prayerbook that resulted is now published as his Book of Hours. From the Book of Monastic Life, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, Wenn es nur einmal so ganz stille wäre:

If only for once it were still.
If the not quite right and the why this
could be muted, and the neighbor’s laughter,
and the static my senses make—
if all of it didn’t keep me from coming awake—

Then in one vast thousandfold thought
I could think you up to where thinking ends.

I could possess you,
even for the brevity of a smile,
to offer you
to all that lives,
in gladness.