About Patience

by Rainer Maria Rilke

English version by Anja Strik
Original Language German

You must allow things
their own, quiet,
undisturbed development,
which comes from deep within
and cannot be pushed
or rushed by anything,
everything is maturing - and
then giving birth...

Maturing like the tree,
that does not press its sap
and stands confidently in the storms of spring,
without fear
that behind it no summer
could come.

It is coming after all!

But it only comes to the patient,
who are there as if eternity
lies before them,
so carefree, quiet, and wide...

You must be patient
with what is unresolved in the heart,
and try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms,
and like books written
in a very foreign language

It is about living it all.
When one lives the questions,
one may perhaps gradually,
without realizing it,
on some strange day
live into the answers.

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About Patience