Prayer

Let everything happen to me: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let me be cut off from the world, Break up, and spill like ash through the autumn.

Look at the boughs hung throbbing Over barren land, open our eyes. Give me, give me all that the night allows, And in the dark, in wild stillness, Show me the face of eternity.

Let me feel the weight of love, The roots that bind our earth and sky, Lead me in your shadows, dear uncertainty, And in your wonders bring me home.

• Rainer Maria Rilke