The Spaces In Between

Good Advice for Grad Students, and for life in general

“Reassurance” by Alice Walker, 1972

I must love the questions
themselves
as Rilke said
like locked rooms
full of treasure
to which my blind
and groping key
does not yet fit.

And await the answers
as unsealed
letters
mailed with dubious intent
and written in a very foreign
tongue.

and in the hourly making
of myself
no thought of Time
to force, to sqeeze
the space
I grow into.

From Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems.

Responses

  1. Trust and Focus. 2015. | The Spaces In Between

    […] I need to trust in love. I need to trust in myself, trust that I know more than I realize, and that the answers will come to me when they do. Questioning, seeking, exploring, wondering: these are all good things, as long as they are not […]

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  2. 2019: Joyful Curiosity – The Spaces In Between

    […] of the ways that I might teach and learn and research in the future. One of my favorite poems is “Reassurance” by Alice Walker, which opens with this line, “I must love the questions/themselves/as Rilke said.” I […]

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