Rilke

The following lines from Rainier Maria Rilke decorated a the wall that I often passed between college classes. It was in the building to the left of Harper (anyone from Hyde Park is welcome to correct me). I contemplated these words three times a week. When I was traveling, I would think of this poem, and feel that I understood it a little better because I was seeing so much outside of myself, yet I could never really escape the lens that was myself.

For the sake of a few lines one must see many cities, men and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the small flowers open in the morning.
One must be able to think back to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to partings which one had long seen coming;
to days of childhood that are still unexplained,

to parents that one had to hurt when they brought one some joy and one did not grasp it (it was joy for someone else);

to childhood illness that so strangely began with a number of profound and grave transformations,

to days in rooms withdrawn and quietand to mornings by the sea,
to the sea itself,to seas,

to nights of travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the stars- and it is not enough if one may think all of this..."

At the charming Bookworm Cafe in Beijing's Sanlitun district, the last place where yours truly saw her beloved pink camera, I stumbled upon a poem of Rilke's once more. What do you like to read while wandering?