flow from me like a river

I am very tired and very cranky; here is some Rilke.

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through the widening channels
into the open sea.

—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), I, 12 from Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated from the German by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (1996, 2005). I am too tired and cranky to type up the original German, but I do feel I should acknowledge that I stole my copy of Rilke's Book of Hours from my BFF K and should probably give it back to her at some point, except I love it too much. I am an absolute sucker for devotional poetry and I'm not sorry.