Before summer rain

Since my first full-time office job over two years ago, I developed this habit of carrying around small notebooks. I write down encouraging or funny things people say, reminders and to-do lists for myself, and sometimes thoughts or diary entries. The notebook habit began when I was bored at work and would write down little poems (by real poets, not my own) on the pages. Ever since, it has been like a Zen thing for me - it calms me and gives me peace and a bit of beauty when things get too complicated. The other day I wrote down "Before Summer Rain," by Rainer Maria Rilke:

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something -- you don't know what -- has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.