Every so often, I plan to post works by some of my favorite writers.  I enjoy picking one poet and reading their work for a week or two. Immersing myself like this, I learn so much about the poet and about writing.

This poem is one of my favorites.  Wait, no, it IS my absolute favorite poem.  I stumbled across it years ago when I was reading Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. I was so amazed by it that I jumped up, got my journal, and wrote the whole thing out.  (Sometimes, I process by writing.)  Then I typed it up and put it in a small frame so I could look at it every day.  Although Rilke lived a century ago, I felt like he was talking to and about me.  This poem was a gift at a particularly difficult, and yet pivotal time in my life and it defines my spiritual core.  Boom.  How did he do that?

I try to live this poem every day by listening to the Unspeaking Center and stretching beyond what limits me.  Oh, and driving the loudmouths from the hall….. its an ongoing process.

The Unspeaking Center

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth—
It’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it’s you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

by Rainer Maria Rilke