For You, Dad, the gift of my wandering Soul

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,

because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,

stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,

so that his children have far to go out into the world

toward that same church, which he forgot.

Ranier Marie Rilke

(transl. Robert Bly)