Poem in Your Pocket Day

Tomorrow is national Poem in Your Pocket Day. I'll be carrying around Rilke's "I Am Too Much Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone," and if anybody stops me and asks me to read it to them, I will. I just love this poem, and I've had it on the brain all afternoon. Dan and I decided to cancel television service for the summer but also buy iphones. I guess we're trying to strike a healthy balance between inundation and isolation?

Oh! and if you're in Madison Friday night, come hear us read at the Project Lodge.



"I Am Too Much Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone"

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.