there is this mystery

.

And yet, though we strain

against the deadening grip

of daily necessity,

I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.

Who is living it, then?

Is it the things themselves,

or something waiting inside them,

like an unplayed melody in a flute?

Is it the winds blowing over the waters?

Is it the branches that signal to each other?

Is it flowers

interweaving their fragrances,

or streets, as they wind through time?

Is it the animals, warmly moving,

or the birds, that suddenly rise up?

Who lives it, then?  God, are you the one

who is living life?

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Pilgrimage, II,12