I love you, gentlest of Ways,

who ripened us as we wrestled with you.

You, the great homesickness we could never shake off,

you, the forest that always surrounded us,

you, the song we sang in every silence,

you dark net threading through us . . .

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

(in Rilke's Book of Hours,

translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)