Favorite words...

It's been a while since I've done a Favorites Fridays post, but this week, when I read this poem, I knew that it was time for another one.

I've made no secret that Rainer Maria Rilke is my favorite poet. The more of his writing-both poetry and letters- I read, the more I love them. The first time I walked into the Rodin garden in Paris, France and saw his name on the plaque on the museum wall, it was like running into a friend in a place where never would have expected to find one.

Like G.K. Chesterton, I feel like Rainer and I would have been friends, had history and geography been kinder.

This poem is from 'A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke', one that I am reading this year. I could gush and tell you how wonderful it is...but I think that is what this whole post is anyway!

Here is the poem...

A hunger drives us.
We want to contain it all in our naked hands,
our brimming senses, our speechless hearts.
We want to become it, or offer it—but to whom?
We could hold it forever—but, after all,
what can we keep? Not the beholding,
so slow to learn. Not anything that has happened here.
Nothing. There are the hurts. And, always, the hardships.
And there's the long knowing of love—all of it
unsayable. Later, amidst the stars, we will see:
these are better unsaid.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Ninth Duino Elegy