After Rilke's Letters
-- by John VanDyke Wilmerding II

this is my letter to a young person
poet you may be, but yet not know it
love is life’s great end, its final purpose
that for which all other tests prepare us
love is not to merge, nor to surrender
yet leads into solitude most tender
alone, into wholeness, one is called
before contemplating how one might wed
that your other might not lack your loving
owing to you finding yourself wanting
however far you are from who you are
that’s the distance you’ll travel for true love
be patient and wait on your completeness
only then can grow your full tenderness
be yourself, and you become another
enhancing your one beloved other

-- original poem written May 27, 2015,'after' Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke