“Love Song” by Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by David Shapiro)

How could I stop myself
from meeting you? Should I rise
up over you to some other things?
I could happily make a roof
with someone abandoned in the dark
in some dumb distant spot
that never shakes, as you are trembling now.
Yet everything that grazes you and me
ties us together like a violin bow
stroking two strings into one sound.
But on what instrument have we been bound?
And what musician has us in his hand?
Oh sweet song.

*

Rainer Maria Rilke was a German-language poet and novelist, known for many works including the poetry collections The Book of Hours (1899), The Book of Images (4 parts 1902-1906) Duino Elegies (1922), Sonnets to Orpheus (1922), and several collections of collected letters, namely, Letters to a Young Poet. He is considered to be the master of lyrical verse.

David Shapiro is an American poet, literary critic, and art historian. He has published some 20 volumes of work including In Memory of an Angel (2016), New and Selected Poems (1965–2006), After a Lost Original (1994), House (Blown Apart) (1988), andJohn Ashbery: An Introduction to the Poetry (1979). He has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Princeton University, and the Cooper Union School of Architecture.

© LIT Magazine Issue #2, 2000