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You Who Never Arrived

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 have 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 are 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...