On Loving the Dark Hours

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 is wide and timeless. 


So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a grave site
and make the real the dream 
of the one its living roots embrace:


a dream once lost 
among sorrows and songs.

Raven Tree by Caspar David Friedrich

Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke’s Book of Hours:Love Poems to God 
trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy