Sonnets to Orpheus, Part
Two, XII
Want the change. Be
inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The
artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it
turns away.
What locks itself in
sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard
becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.
Pour yourself out like a
fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often
at the start, and, with ending, begins.
Every happiness is the child
of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne,
becoming
a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
~
(In Praise of Mortality, translated and
edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
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