You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me--the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, 1913-1914

Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.

Can you imagine?

Olympic Peninsula

Also, here are some semi-recent frames:

It's alright. It all comes right.

New York City apartment hunting.

I'm coming across listings highlighting amenities such as "high speed elevators" and a "24-hour doorman" and "tons of closet space" and "in-building laundry facilities". How foreign this city is to me! Why wouldn't a sofa, bed, desk, chair, and all my worldly possessions fit into a living space? Why wouldn't this studio come with a kitchen?

Some apartment listings are very up-front and honest: "BOX. ALL UTIL INCLUDED. NO ROOMMATE NEEDED", or, "BASEMENT LIVING. HRDWD FLRS. DARK. NO LANDLORD." Some gloat about the location, history, and newly renovated amenities only to reveal that they are actually in New Jersey or Montreal or in the deep crevices of East Harlem. Some insist that $900 per month is "cheap living" and assure you there isn't any catch to their "best deal in the city".

Oh, give me a tiny studio big enough for myself and two suitcases full of worldly things. Give me floor space enough to twirl to music in the morning as I get ready for the day. Give me exposed brick to warm my back against when I'm writing papers in bed. Give me a quiet rooftop with a wide view. Give me a safe walk home every night.

These hours spent scouring the internet for a new home leave me overwhelmed; I am navigating this next step so naively! And, oh, Lord God, You know.