You who never arrived

Fern Lake Trail
Rocky Mountain National Park
September 2012

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 unsuspected 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.

Rainer Maria Rilke