You Who Never Arrived - Rainer Maria Rilke

"You Who Never Arrived" poem 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 have given up trying to recognize you
in the surging wave of the next moment.
All the immense images in me
the far-off but deeply-felt --
landscape,
cities,
towers,
and bridges.
The 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.
Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed
through both of us
yesterday,
separate,
in the evening ...

Filming and narration by Kathryn Oliver
www.kathrynoliver.com