the voices

.

It's OK for the rich and the lucky to keep still,

no one wants to know about them anyway,

But those in need have to step forward,

have to say: I am blind,

or: I'm about to go blind,

or: nothing is going well with me,

or: I have a child who is sick,

or: right there I'm sort of glued together...

And probably that doesn't do anything either.

They have to sing; if they didn't sing, everyone

would walk past, as if they were fences or trees.

That's where you can hear good singing.

People really are strange: they prefer

to hear castratos in boychoirs.

But God himself comes and stays a long time

when the world of half-people start to bore him.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

translation by Robert Bly

art by van gogh