advice to a young poet

A poem shared with us on our last day of class,

by one of the best teachers I know.

Advice to a young poet

"You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you 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 answer."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Isn't this a perfect description of understanding?

Like stumbling upon something beautiful.

An unexpected and happy surprise.

No wonder life is so important.

Think of all we learn as we live our questions!