I held myself too open, I forgot <br />that outside not just things exist and animals <br />fully at ease in themselves, whose eyes <br />reach from their lives' roundedness no differently <br />than portraits do from frames; forgot that I <br />with all I did incessantly crammed <br />looks into myself; looks, opinion, curiosity. <br />Who knows: perhaps eyes form in space <br />and look on everywhere. Ah, only plunged toward you <br />does my face cease being on display, grows <br />into you and twines on darkly, endlessly, <br />into your sheltered heart. <br /> <br />As one puts a handkerchief before pent-in-breath- <br />no: as one presses it against a wound <br />out of which the whole of life, in a single gush, <br />wants to stream, I held you to me: I saw you <br />turn red from me. How could anyone express <br />what took place between us? We made up for everything <br />there was never time for. I matured strangely <br />in every impulse of unperformed youth, <br />and you, love, had wildest childhood over my heart. <br /> <br />Memory won't suffice here: from those moments <br />there must be layers of pure existence <br />on my being's floor, a precipitate <br />from that immensely overfilled solution. <br /> <br />For I don't think back; all that I am <br />stirs me because of you. I don't invent you <br />at sadly cooled-off places from which <br />you've gone away; even your not being there <br />is warm with you and more real and more <br />than a privation. Longing leads out too often <br />into vagueness. Why should I cast myself, when, <br />for all I know, your influence falls on me, <br />gently, like moonlight on a window seat. <br /> <br /> <br />Translated by A. Poulin<br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-lou-andreas-salome/
