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 un-
suspected 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...
Book of Hours I 2
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?