Rilke on Hope

[with thanks to Janet Atkins]

All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the water undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
and in the valleys, people as strong and varied as the land.

And no churches where God
is imprisoned and lamented
like a trapped and wounded animal.
The houses welcoming all who knock
and a sense of boundless offering
in all relations, and in you and me.

No yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,
no belittling of death,
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, lest we remain unused.

Rainer Maria Rilke