Rilke

Your first word was:  Light:
and time began.  After long silence
your second word was Man and there was fear
(we still darken in its sound)
before your face resumed its brooding.

Yet I am loath to hear your third.

I often pray at night: be the mute one,
the one growing steadily in gestures
and driven by the spirit in dream
to inscribe the heavy sum of silence
on mountain peaks and human brows.

Be the refuge from that wrath
that cast out the ineffable.
Night fell in Paradise:
be the herdsman whose horn sounded once--
but only as our ancient stories tell.



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