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Tim joined us for Thanksgiving some years back.  My mother was there and she made us go through the ritual of each person saying something they were thankful for.  Most of us were self-conscious and eager to get it over with and muttered something about how we were thankful for our families and friends.

Not Tim.  When it came to be his turn, Tim shared his great enthusiasm for "the breath."  I gather that breath had been the key focus of his meditation practices, a spiritual teacher for him.  I don't recall his words, but I recall the enthusiasm, the sense of poetry, of a force that united us all.  He had our full attention, speaking from the heart about something really important to him.

So as a tribute to Tim I'd like to share this poem by Rilke which was quite in keeping with Tim's praise of Thanksgiving.  His breath has joined with ours, we carry on his breath in our own,  Let us always be thankful for it.

The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: I

Breathing: you invisible poem! Complete
interchange of our own
essence with world-space. You counterweight
in which I rythmically happen.

Single wave-motion whose
gradual sea I am:
you, most inclusive of all our possible seas-
space has grown warm.

How many regions in space have already been
inside me. There are winds that seem like
my wandering son.

Do you recognize me, air, full of places I once absorbed?
You who were the smooth bark,
roundness, and leaf of my words. 


Translated by Stephen Mitchell 

Rainer Maria Rilke