See, we don’t love like flowers, in a
single year: when we love, an ancient
sap rises in our arms. O, girls,
this: that we loved inside us, not one to come, but
the immeasurable seething: not a single child,
but the fathers: resting on our depths
like the rubble of mountains: the dry river-beds
of those who were mothers – : the whole
silent landscape under a clouded or
clear destiny – : girls, this came before you.
And you yourself, how could you know – that you
stirred up primordial time in your lover. What feelings
welled up from lost lives. What
women hated you there. What sinister men
you roused up in his young veins. Dead
children wanted you…..O, gently, gently,
show him with love a confident daily task – lead him
near to the Garden, give him what outweighs
those nights……..
Be in him……………
from the end of Rilke’s Third Duino Elegy