Life of Kim

This is a poem found in The Book of a Monastic Life from Rilke’s Book of Hours.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I,5

I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open

to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree

rustling over a gravesite

and making real the dream

of the one its living roots

embrace:

a dream once lost

among sorrows and songs.

You can find this in Rilke’s Book of Hours.