from The Book of Hours: I am, anxious one....

from “The Book of Hours”

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I am, anxious one.  Do you not hear me

surge with all of my magnitude within you?

My sensations, sewn to seamless wings, orbit

your countenance with translucence.

Do you not see my soul, how dense it weaves

through your eyes in a mantle of stillness?

Does not my springtime prayer ripen 

upon your view as fruit upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am your dream.

Yet if you yearn to wake, I am your desire

and will empower all the radiance

and bend myself as a celestial hush

beyond the strange entwined city of time.

[trans A. Badagnani]

copyright © 2018 Adria Badagnani