Orts #753

all, Rilke:

[about his childhood]  . . . my awareness is full to the brim with recollections of moments when all the people about me could do something and knew things and acted mechanically without thinking how to go about it, while I, embarrased, didn't know where to begin, wasn't even able to imitate them by watching.

In writing poetry, one is always aided and even carried away by the rhythm of exterior things; for the lyric cadence is that of nature: of the waters, the wind, the night. But to write rhythmic prose one must go deep into oneself and find the anonymous and multiple rhythm of the blood.

. . . the using of strength in a certain sense is always increase of strength also; for fundamentally we have to do only with a wide cycle: all strength that we give away comes over us again, experienced and altered.