a hundred roots silently drinking

I have many brothers in the South

who move, handsome in their vestments,

through cloister gardens.

The Madonnas they make are so human,

and I dream often of their Titians,

where God becomes an ardent flame.

But when I lean over the chasm of myself -

it seems

my God is dark

and like a web: a hundred roots

silently drinking.

This is the ferment I grow out of.

More I don't know, because my branches

rest in deep silence, stirred only by the wind.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Monastic Life, I,3

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