The Watcher Cat

The Watcher Cat

Monday, April 1, 2019

Found Words: Albany Edition

As readers may know, my wife and I bought the home of which I was renting a floor in Albany from the estate of my late landlady--herself an advent feminist, defender of the right of children to be free from abuse, a collector of old Albany stories and memorabilia (I have a beautiful old silver matchbox with the Capitol Building embossed on it that she left behind. We used to compare historical characters--I fed her tales of James Michael Curley, she'd regale me with the legends of Erastus Corning, and of his namesake great-grandson.

She also did stained glass, many of which I have great affection for. And, in her workshop she had some items posted where she alone would see them, and draw inspiration.

Here's one, that she typed out--the paper, once a creamy, heavy bond, now is brittle, crumbling around the edges, and I'm posting it as much so I don't lose it as to share it with you. The lines are blocked as Bernadette typed them:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved
in your heart,
Try to love the questions themselves.

Do not seek he answers,
which cannot be given
because you would not be able
to live them
And the point is,
to live everything.

Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then,
gradually,
without noticing it,
Live along some distant day
into the answers.

Rainer Maria Rilke

[The poem is a paragraph from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, p. 43.]

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