Shouldn't…but Do

(excerpted)

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every hour holy.
I am too small in the world, and not small enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
dark and shrewd.
I want my own will, and I want to be with my will
as it goes toward action;
and in those silent, sometimes hardly moving times,
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who are know secret things
or else alone…

Rainer Maria Rilke