Being pulled toward the heart of the world

 

How surely gravity's law,

strong as an ocean current, 

takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing-

each stone, blossom, child -

is held in place. 

Only we, in our arrogance, 

push out beyond what we belong to

for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered 

to earth's intelligence 

we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves

in knots of our own making 

and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again 

to learn from the things, 

because they are in God's heart; 

they have never left him.

This is what the things teach us:

to fall, 

patiently trusting our heaviness.

Even a bird has to do that 

before he can fly.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God