Rainer Maria Rilke: "I, 12" ["I believe in all that has never been spoken"]

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 widening channels
into the open sea.



"I, 12" ["I believe in all that has never been spoken"] by Rainer Maria Rilke. Text as published in Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated from the original German by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. Reprinted with permission of the editors.

Read the German text on page 65 of this online source. 

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.