"The longer I live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed suddenly into magnificent sense.
We make our way through Everything like thread passing through fabric: giving shape to images that we ourselves do not know."
Rilke, Letters on Life, transl. U. Baier, 2005
terrific quote. this might be something i could share with my high school students who resist revision.
ReplyDeleteEndure. He certainly did, writing to the end. "A thread passing through fabric" is different from a needle piercing fabric. I imagine his choosing thread rather than needle, gentler.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Susan. I've read this first thing this morning.
Mim, Wonderful to wake up to Rilke!
ReplyDeleteNancy, Rilke is great for high school students. I'm guessing you know his Letters to a Young Poet. I still have my copy from my freshman year of college ~ when dinosaurs roamed the interstate.