Your dear natural possession

…Describe your sorrows and desires, 
the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty – 
describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, 
when you express yourself, 
use the Things around you, 
the images from your dreams, 
and the objects that you remember.
 If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; 
admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; 
because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. 
And even if you found yourself in some prison, 
whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – 
wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, 
that treasure house of memories? 
Turn your attentions to it. 
Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; 
your personality will grow stronger, 
your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, 
where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. 
— And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, 
poems come, 
then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. 
Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: 
for you will see them as your dear natural possession, 
a piece of your life, 
a voice from it.
 A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. 
That is the only way one can judge it. 

Rainer Maria Rilke