Rainer Maria Rilke

For the sake of a single verse, one must see many cities, men,
and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how
the birds fly and know the gesture with which the little
flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back
to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to
partings one had long seen coming; to days of childhood that
are still unexplained, to parents whom one had to hurt when
they brought one some joy and did not grasp it (it was a joy
for someone else); to childhood illnesses that so strangely
begin with such a number of profound and grave
transformations, to days in rooms withdrawn and quiet and
to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of
travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the
stars—and it is not yet enough if one may think of all this.
One must have memories of many nights of love, none of
which was like the others, of the screams of women in labor,
and of light, white, sleeping women in childbed, closing again.
But one must also have been beside the dying, must have sat
beside the dead in the room with the open window and the
fitful noises. And still it is not enough to have memories. One
must be able to forget them when they are many, and one
must have the great patience to wait until they come again.
For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not till they have
turned to blood within us, to glance, and gesture, nameless,
and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves—not till
then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of
a verse arises in their midst and goes forth from them.
—From “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge