cloaked in stillness

 

I Am

I am, you anxious one.

Don’t you sense me, ready to break
into being at your touch?
My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings.
Can’t you see me standing before you
cloaked in stillness?
Hasn’t my longing ripened in you
from the beginning
as fruit ripens on a branch?

I am the dream you are dreaming.
When you want to awaken, I am that wanting:
I grow strong in the beauty you behold.
And with the silence of stars I enfold
your cities made by time.

Rainer Maria Rilke 

 
 

5 thoughts on “cloaked in stillness”

  1. Thank you Carrie for the deeply spiritual poem by Rilke.

    I was ignorant of him so I googled and found
    familiar themes – outer space within us and God revealed in that solitude.

    I learned the meaning of his middle name and the feminine influence in his poetry.

    The subjects of life, death, solitude, and decisions reminded me of Existentialism.
    So I googled that philosophy with his name. I learned that he was the greatest Christian Existentialist in Germany a 100 years ago!

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      1. Thank you Carrie -/
        You are the Wise One for presenting to your followers important thoughts to ponder.

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  2. Carrie, did you present the haunting poem “I AM” because of the the Feast of the Annunciation March 25th?

    “I Am” (Hebrew name of God) and 
    “anxious one” (Mary).
    “My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings.”
    Perhaps an image of the Holy Ghost used by Gerard Manley Hopkins 
    in his poem “God’s Grandeur”
    published when Rainer was 2 years old.
    “Hasn’t my longing ripened in you as fruit ripens on a branch ?”
    The predestined conception in Mary of the Son of God incarnated as a human.

    “…blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus.”
    Amen

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