“I thank you, deep power
That works me ever more lightly
In ways I can’t make out…”
                   Rainier Maria Rilke, “Like a Holy Face”


Learning from Rilke #13

Deep power 
In these dark times
when the news might well be 
that the stars have burned out in the night sky,
and the rivers refuse to run,
you seem hidden
as if in the bottom of the ocean.
I see only the whitecaps of waves.

You are in the stems of daisies.
I see only the flower.
You are in roots of trees.
I see only spreading branches.

Deep power,
you are In a piano playing, the guitar strumming,
In the hands that hold love, the hands that make art
and poems spoken wise.

Yet though you move in my blood and breath,
I see only my body
and trust only my heavy, fearful certainties.

Still 
out of my sight
beyond my knowing
you appear 
 working lightly,