Poem: The Departure of the Prodigal Son, Rainer Maria Rilke

To go forth now from all the entanglement that is ours and not yet ours, that, like the water in an old well reflects us in fragments, distorts what we are. From all that clings like burrs and brambles – to go forth and see for once, close up afresh, what we had ceased to see – so familiar it had become. To glimpse how vast and how impersonal is the suffering that filled your childhood. Yes, go forth, hand pulling away from hand. Go forth to what? To uncertainty, to a country with no connections to us and indifferent to the dramas of our life. What drives you to go forth? Impatience, instinct, a dark need, the incapacity to understand. To bow to all this. To let go – even if you have to die alone. Is this the start of a new life?