"You Who Never Arrived" by Rainer Maria Rilke.
You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved,
who were lost from the start, I don't
even know what songs would please you.
I've given up trying to recognize you
in the surging wave of the next moment.
All the immense images in me-- the far
off, deeply-felt landscape, cities, towers
and bridges and unsuspected turns in the
path, and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-- all
rise within me to mean you, who forever elude me.
You, Beloved, who all the gardens I have
ever gazed at, longing. An open window in
a country house-- and you almost stepped
out, pensive to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-- you had just
walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? perhaps the same bird echoed
through both of us yesterday, separate, in
the evening...
