A Room with a View...

Dear Diary,

I left Iona this morning and I wanted to keep this view from my window to cherish as I move on to the next leg of my journey. It was a glorious morning. When I opened my window I could hear the elusive corncrake calling. There is one living in the meadow in front of the parish church but I never saw him. Just hearing him and knowing he is there was fine with me.

I found this poem in my email when I reached Glasgow and it seemed so perfect for the day...

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
(Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)