An Irrevocable Year

Memory

And you wait, awaiting the one
to make your small life grow:
the mighty, the uncommon,
the awakening of stone,
the depths to be opened below.

Now duskily in the bookcase
gleam the volumes in brown and gold;
you remember lands you have wandered through,
the pictures and the garments
of women lost of old.

And you suddenly know: It was here!
You pull yourself together, and there
stands an irrevocable year
of anguish and vision and prayer.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

irrevocable |ˌiˈrevəkəbəl|
adjective
not able to be changed, reversed, or recovered; final : an irrevocable step.