A PASSING TRAIN

Most experiences are
unsayable,
they happen in a space
that no word
has ever entered;

Go into yourself.

in the deepest and most
important matters,
we are unspeakably
alone;

And the point is,
to live everything.
To walk inside yourself
and meet no one
for hours – we must

trust in what is difficult;

Perhaps everything
that frightens us
is something helpless
that wants our love.

life has not forgotten you

let us wait for what wants to come.

Source: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Method: Every word was found in Letters to a Young Poet. They remain unchanged and in the same chronological order as they appeared in the letters Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to Franz Xaver Kappus. The lines reached out to me as a comprehensive whole, so I simply allowed Rilke to inspire me in order to put the pieces together.

Ariane Lewis lives in Connecticut where she works as a puzzle editor and technical writer. Her poetry has appeared in both Foothill: a journal of poetry and Rufous Salon Journal.