Poor Like That...

We are not poor. We are just without riches,
We who have no will, no world:
Marked with the marks of the latest anxiety,
Disfigured, stripped of leaves.
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Around us swirls the dust of the cities,
The garbage clings to us.
We are shunned as if contaminated,
Thrown away like broken pots, like bones,
Like last year’s calendar.
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And yet if our Earth needed to
She could weave us together like roses
And make of us a garland.
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For each being is cleaner than washed stones
And endlessly yours, and like an animal
Who know already in its first blind moments
Its need for one thing only…
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To let ourselves be poor like that…as we truly are.
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Rainer Maria Rilke wrote that poem around 1909 and like most of Rilke’s work it is filled with images that haunt my imagination. His work is considered transitional because his themes tend to put him between traditional and the modern poets. But Rilke’s work is more than transitional; it’s transformational. He captures the essence of humanity and lifts it into another reality and then releases it in this physical time in order to open my blocked passage ways to understanding other aspects of my consciousness. He uses words to take me back to the beginning of my journey and asks me to start it again using an open mind and the gift of freedom. He asks me to feel more than my external senses feel, so I can begin to enjoy the beauty that rests within me.
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I found this poem in his Book of Hours and it almost jumped out of the book and landed on this paper on its own. The message within it is as timely now as it was one hundred years ago, in fact it explains the drama that humanity experiences living the definition of poor or rich, weak or strong, by believing in ego motivated thoughts. My measurements of these illusions create perceptions that keep me a state of fear and anxiety. I find the garbage of lies and deceit clinging to me, because my mind is a trash can filled with fragments of truths that are the thoughts of others; I hold them inside of me as beliefs, until they begin to rot.
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The shift in consciousness is a trash collector. All of the useless debris that has accumulated in my mind is being emptied in the landfill of awareness. The concepts of poor, rich, weak and strong are emerging from this dump as recycled life. I am able to sense my self as a washed stone completely clear of the mud and dirt that has buried me in a mound of fear and aggression.
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My world is poor but rich, because it is a flowing stream of abundant appreciation. Yesterday’s stage of lack has dropped off the cliff of tainted beliefs and is absorbed in the dust of my new city. A city where I take responsibility for what I create; a city where poor and rich are flowers that bloom in the same garden and compliment each other; a city where weak and strong ride in the same vehicle and wear the seat belts of understanding. My city is an Earth city filled with natural awareness. Like roses, my community blossoms into magnificent colors of consciousness that use each thorn to enhance its beauty.
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My city is the city of the now. It contains the Fountain of Youth and the Holy Grail. It has unlimited paths to nowhere, where all things exist in tranquility. It is one with nature and my material possessions are useless toys because I have the mountains, the valleys, streams, rivers and oceans to claim as my badge of wealth. Creating my recycled city is a dream, a fairy tale, a myth that becomes reality when I believe it already exists.
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Rilke lived in such a city, but commuted to the city of illusions in order to help collect its trash. He continues to be of service and pick up bits and pieces of dreams and makes them as they truly are…poor but filled with the riches of conscious awareness. When I allow my self to be poor like that… my riches become my only reality.
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