You Who Never Arrived

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, 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...


I cannot believe I stumbled across this poem tonight.  I was contemplating what it means to live and have moments of pure romance when you are alone.  This has happened to me a lot lately. 

Are these moments of hope in the future, of meeting some future love, or just memories of the past?  I don't think so, i think they are true honest, blissful romance, totally present in that moment.  Is it connecting to the energy of love others are experiencing, or connecting to some divine/universal current of love, perhaps just the same bird echoing through both (or all) of us.