Sacred Heart #3

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet-
all this universe, to the furthest stars|
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875- 1926) was an Austrian poet and recognized as a significant writer in the German language. His work has mystical undertones and explores subjective experience.

Rilke uses words of the senses to describe his understanding and experience of God – sweet, flesh, fruit, clinging, shells, rich, thick fluids, beyond the farthest stars. This teeming sensuality is vast and eternal, a mystical presence that will outlast the stars. Ironically, the Buddha, who preached moderation and the middle way, in his Glory is vastly rich and lush.