You, darkness, of whom I am born—
I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illuminates
and excludes all the rest.
But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations—just as they are.
It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours : Love Poems to God
Whom should I turn to,
if not the one whose darkness
is darker than night, the only one
who keeps vigil with no candle
and is not afraid—
the deep one, whose being I trust,
for it breaks through the earth into trees,
and rises,
when I bow my head,
faint as a fragrance
from the soil.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours : Love Poems to God