From The Book of a Monastic Life
I, II
by Rainer Maria Rilke
You darkness, of whom I am born–
I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illumines
and excludes all the rest.
But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me.
people, nations–just as they are.
It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.
You can find this poem in Rilke’s Book of Hours.
Life of Kim 