From Rilke, A Short Story

The skyline above is from where I live in Utah Valley, taken as photo earlier this week. I’ve come to love this skyline, these Wasatch Mountains, for the way that they hold the eastern edge of valley, over which sun rises. And for the way that they take me away to a certain kind of aspiration and wonder in their 12,000 ft grandeur.

I suppose that this poem below by the Austrian, Raine Maria Rilke, is about departures. And searches. And courage. And surrender. And wonder. And holding. And…. Therein lays some of the beauty of Rilke, taking us with just a few words to the places we yearn for. And sometimes, the places we avoid.

For reflection.

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that a stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that this children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

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