After Rilke's Letters<br />-- by John VanDyke Wilmerding II<br /><br />this is my letter to a young person<br />poet you may be, but yet not know it<br />love is life’s great end, its final purpose<br />that for which all other tests prepare us<br />love is not to merge, nor to surrender<br />yet leads into solitude most tender<br />alone, into wholeness, one is called<br />before contemplating how one might wed<br />that your other might not lack your loving<br />owing to you finding yourself wanting<br />however far you are from who you are<br />that’s the distance you’ll travel for true love<br />be patient and wait on your completeness<br />only then can grow your full tenderness<br />be yourself, and you become another<br />enhancing your one beloved other<br /><br />-- original poem written May 27, 2015,'after' Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Letters to a Young Poet