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Go to the limits of your longing
source · substack.com ↗ I woke up and began my doomscrolling session on Substack and came across a note by [the awesome Cate Hall](https://substack.com/@usefulfictions/note/c-214648890?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1eft5) with a screenshot of Rilke's 'Go to the Limits of Your Longing' poem.[The translation](https://onbeing.org/poetry/go-to-the-limits-of-your-longing/) is under copyright but out of curiosity I asked Gemini and Claude to find the [original German version](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24288) and then translate it:*God speaks to each of us before our making,* *then walks in silence as the night is breaking.* *But the words spoken before we each begin—* *these words, like silver, are these:**You, sent out beyond your own senses,* *go to the edge of your longing;* *clothe me.**Grow like a fire behind all things,* *so that their shadows, stretched wide,* *may always cover me entirely.**Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.* *One must only keep going: no feeling is the furthest.* *Do not let yourself be severed from me.*
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