"oh" and "ah"

No! I refuse! My heart shall be a tower
and I must set myself upon its edge
and in that nothingness must be once more
all world, all pain, all that cannot be said.
A solitary thing, still lost in huge excess
time after time darkening and lightening-
the last surviving image of all yearning,
cast out into infinite restlessness.
And still this fixed, ultimate stone face,
consenting to endure its heaviness...

---Rilke


It's great to live only by the spirit, to testify day by day, for eternity, to the spiritual side of people. But sometimes I get fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above I'd like to feel there's some weight to me. To end my eternity, and bind me to earth. At each step, at each gust of wind, I'd like to be able to say: 'Now! Now! and Now!' And no longer say: 'Since always' and 'Forever.' To sit in the empty seat at a card table, and be greeted, if only by a nod.... And to drink and eat.... [i]t would be quite something to come home after a long day, like Philip Marlowe, and feed the cat. To have a fever. To have blackened fingers from the newspaper.... To feel your skeleton moving along as you walk. Finally to suspect, instead of forever knowing all. To be able to say 'Ah!' and 'Oh!' and 'Hey!' instead of 'Yes' and 'Amen'

--Wings of Desire.