the incapacity to understand

i've posted this poem before, but i continue to come back to it, as it continues to be so utterly relevant.

the departure of the prodigal son by r.m. rilke

To go forth now
from all the entanglement
that is ours and yet not ours,
that, like the water in an old well,
reflects us in fragments, distorts what we are.

From all that clings like burrs and brambles—
to go forth
and see for once, close up, afresh,
what we had ceased to see—
so familiar it had become.
To glimpse how vast and how impersonal
is the suffering that filled your childhood.

Yes, to go forth, hand pulling away from hand.
Go forth to what? To uncertainty,
to a country with no connections to us
and indifferent to the dramas of our life.

What drives you to go forth? Impatience, instinct,
a dark need, the incapacity to understand.

To bow to all this.
To let go—
even if you have to die alone.

Is this the start of a new life?



notice, it is sheer uncertainty to which we go forth, away from entanglement and that which we know, perhaps to other suffering or even lonely death--but always to life.
rilke understood my future existence almost too well. maybe i am him? most certainly, i think.