the wall between us

I was so sure when I started the month that this was going to end up being a war poetry year, and instead—as much as any year of poetry month ever has any kind of consistent theme—it's sort of turned out to be a devotional poetry year, in a bunch of different ways. I guess it's not that surprising that I would be drawn, here in the plague year of 2020, to poems that are about wrestling with god and faith and our existence in the world, but it's probably kind of risky to read Rilke when I'm already feeling that way. This poem is for yesterday, and after I post it, I'm also going to post a poem for today. Why not, right?

You, God, who live next door—

If at times, through the long night, I trouble you
with my urgent knocking—
this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.
I know you're all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there's no one
to get you a glass of water.
I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!
I'm right here.

As it happens, the wall between us
is very thin. Why couldn't a cry
from one of us
break it down? It would crumble
easily,

it would barely make a sound.

—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), I, 6 from Book of Hours: Love Poems to God (from part one, "The Book of Monastic Life"), translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996/2005). Rilke's Book of Hours was originally published in 1905, and written between 1899 and 1903. My edition of Rilke is bilingual, but I am too lazy to type of the German tonight.