
You, mountain,
Here since mountains began
slopes where nothing is built
Peaks that no one has named,
Eternal snows littered with stars,
Valleys in flower—
Do I move inside you now?
Am I within the rock
Like a metal that hasn’t been mined?
Your hardness
Encloses me everywhere
Or is it fear I am caught in?
The tightening fear
of swollen cities
in which I suffocate.
–Rainer Maria Rilke