'Step out of the room where everything is known'

Happy New Year wishes!
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I've been reading the wonderful 'A Year with Rilke' translated and edited by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows; these are daily readings which bring together many of Rilke's beautiful works, and for the 3rd of January is the poem 'Entering', from 'Book of Images' - just right for the year's beginning:

'Entering' by Rainer Maria Rilke

Whoever you may be: step into the evening.
Step out of the room where everything is known.
Whoever you are,
your house is the last before the far-off.
With your eyes, which are almost too tired
to free themselves from the familiar,
you slowly take one black tree
and set it against the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made a world.
It is big
and like a word, still ripening in silence.
And though your mind would fabricate its meaning,
your eyes tenderly let go of what they see.


Rilke's poetry often explores beginnings and departures, seeing and creating anew, being on the verge of the undiscovered... and stillness - evoking a presence beyond words and concepts. I always see strong visuals and colours when I read his work and love the creating and letting go in this poem...

Do you find this too? That when reading poetry or any form of writing, you experience colours and visuals?... I'd love to know whether reading inspires you to paint and create.

Rilke's tree ... a quick sketch, painted this morning turned into a white 'negative' of the poem's black tree x

Please click here to read more, in the current newsletter...
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