A Year Of Grace

My mother died on 3 November 2004 after suffering from progressive Alzheimer's disease for 5 years. The next day I found on her bookshelves an anthology of spiritual poetry and prose chosen by Victor Gollancz and called A Year Of Grace: Passages Chosen And Arranged To Express A Mood About God And Man. It was first published in 1950. It helped see me through that 1st week after her death.

The book contains quotations from a diverse range of writers: William Blake, Meister Eckhart, Sir Thomas Browne, Goethe, Shelley, Spinoza, Gabriel Marcel, Aldous Huxley, William James, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Traherne, Erasmus, Jakob Boehme, Erich Fromm, Albert Schweitzer, Shelley, Plato and St John Of The Cross to name but a few; and quotations from such great spiritual resources as the Talmud, the Bible and the Bhavagad-Gita.

There are also several poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my favourite poets. If you read about Rilke you realise very quickly that both his life and his intensely felt poetry are inextricably entwined. His Sonnets To Orpheus and Duino Elegies are profound and idiosyncratic works revealing a very personal and mystical relationship with God.

This poem comes from his more accessible collection The Book Of Hours. It shows an unconventionally symbiotic relationship between Rilke and his God. It is as if God needs us more than we need Him. It is as if God is still growing - and he needs us in order to continue to grow.

What will you do, God, when I die?
When I, your picher, broken, lie?
When I, your drink, go stale or dry?
I am your garb, the trade you ply,
you lose your meaning, losing me.

Homeless without me, you will be
robbed of your welcome, warm and sweet.
I am your sandals: your tired feet
will wander bare for want of me.

Your mighty cloak will fall away.
Your glance that on my cheek was laid
and pillowed warm, will seek, dismayed,
the comfort that I offered once -
to lie, as sunset colours fade
in the cold lap of alien stones.

What will you do, God? I am afraid.