To write a single verse it is necessary
to have visited many cities, men and things,
to know animals, and feel how the birds fly.
You need to know which movement make
the small flowers by opening in the morning.
It is necessary to be able to think about roads in unknown regions,
about unexpected meetings, departures which we saw for a long time approaching,
to think about days of our childhood which mystery did not yet clear up (...)
To think of mornings by the sea, of all the seas,
of nights of journey which shivered very high and flew with all the stars,
- and it is not even enough to think of all this.
It is necessary to have memory of many nights of love,
each one
different from the other,
of women's shouts roaring in child's evil,
and light, whites.
It is also necessary to have been near dying people,
and spent nights sat in an opened window chamber with the deaths,
and
sounds of life coming by fits and starts.
And it is not even enough to have "souvenirs".
It is necessary to know how to forget them when they are too numerous,
and have the big patience to wait that they return.
Because "souvenirs" are not themselves still it.
It is only when they become in us blood, glance, gesture,
when they do not have anymore a name
and do not distinguish themselves no more from us,
then, it may happen that, in an hour very rare,
from the middle of them gets up the first word of a verse.
Reiner Marie Rilke - Les cahiers de Mr. Brigge
