100 Day Project – Days 33 and 34

DAY 33 (June 12th, 2017)

Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke

From the Book of Hours

What will you do, God, when I die?

I am your pitcher (when I shatter?)
I am your drink (when I go bitter?)
I, your garment; I, your craft.
Without me what reason have you?

Without me what house
where intimate words await you?
I, velvet sandal that falls from your foot.
I, cloak dropping from your shoulder.

Your gaze, which I welcome now
as it warms my cheek,
will search for me hour after hour
and lie at sunset, spent,
on an empty beach
among unfamiliar stones.

What will you do, God? I am afraid.

My Commentary

This is the hour
for which I’ve been waiting,
or was the hour waiting for me?
… if the hour is God
and the moon is flight,
and I the blue heron
alone in my thoughts
was lost in the bulrushes.

DAY 34 (June 13th, 2017)

Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke

From the Book of Hours

I have hymns you haven’t heard.

There is an upward soaring
in which I bend close.
You can barely distinguish me
from the things that kneel before me.

They are like sheep, they are grazing.
I am the shepherd on the brow of the hill.
When evening draws them home
I follow after, the dark bridge thudding.

And the vapor rising from their backs
hides my own homecoming.

My Commentary

There God goes
she dances like a child
among the wildflowers
on a honey-colored hillock
this side of eventide.

Up and over,
into darkness smiling,
her lips are tinged with twilight
and solace.


The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

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