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For the sake of a single verse, one must see many cities, men,

and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how

the birds fly and know the gesture with which the little

flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back

to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to

partings one had long seen coming; to days of childhood that

are still unexplained, to parents whom one had to hurt when

they brought one some joy and did not grasp it (it was a joy

for someone else); to childhood illnesses that so strangely

begin with such a number of profound and grave

transformations, to days in rooms withdrawn and quiet and

to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of

travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the

stars—and it is not yet enough if one may think of all this.

One must have memories of many nights of love, none of

which was like the others, of the screams of women in labor,

and of light, white, sleeping women in childbed, closing again.

But one must also have been beside the dying, must have sat

beside the dead in the room with the open window and the

fitful noises. And still it is not enough to have memories. One

must be able to forget them when they are many, and one

must have the great patience to wait until they come again.

For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not till they have

turned to blood within us, to glance, and gesture, nameless,

and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves—not till

then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of

a verse arises in their midst and goes forth from them.

 

—Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

 

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