Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."

I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.

I am too alone by Rainer Maria Rilke

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough 
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough 
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will, 
as it goes toward action, 
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times 
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things 
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your old and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, 
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things 
true before you.  I want to describe myself 
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother,
like a ship that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

~ from Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, 
translated by Robert Bly (Harper & Row, 1981)