God speaks to each one of us only before we’re made,
then wanders with us silently out of the night;
but the words uttered before each begins,
the misty words, are these:
“Go you who are sent out by your senses;
go out to the boundary of your yearning;
clothe me with a garment.
Grow like a fire behind things
so that their shadows, spreading all about,
cover me always and utterly.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and dread.
One must only go; no feeling is too remote.
Don’t let yourself part with me.
Near is the land
you call life.
You’ll recognize it
by its earnestness!
Give me your hand.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
—