If only for once it were still

If only for once it were still.

If the not quite right and the why this

could be muted, and the neighbor's laughter,

and the static my senses make -

if all of it didn't keep me from coming awake -

Then in one vast thousandfold thought

I could think you up to where thinking ends.

I could possess you,

even for the brevity of a smile,

to offer you 

to all that lives,

in gladness.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Monastic Life, I,7