I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each shall stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation.
Rainer Maria RilkeI would like to sing someone to sleep, to sit beside someone and be there. I would like to rock you and sing softly and go with you to and from sleep. I would like to be the one in the house who knew: The night was cold. And I would like to listen in and listen out into you, into the world, into the woods. The clocks shout to one another striking, and one sees to the bottom of time. And down below one last, strange man walks by and rouses a strange dog. And after that comes silence. I have laid my eyes upon you wide; and they hold you gently and let you go when something stirs in the dark.
Rainer Maria RilkeLive your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.
Rainer Maria RilkeInterior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk only on feelings. That faces upward and in its mirror receives heavenly roads, which travel along themselves. That has learned to walk upon water when it scoops, that walks upon wells, transfiguring every path. That steps into other hands, changes those that are like it into a landscape: wanders and arrives within them, fills them with arrival.
Rainer Maria Rilke