Charles Haseloff
SONNET B.II .,
after
RILKE
Few childhood friends are left
in the city's random gardens, where we met
and shyly took a liking to each other, speaking,
like the lamb in pictures bearing the talking scroll,
in silence. We lived so many joys. And no one cared
about owning them. Who could have? They all dissolved
in the way of sidewalk multitudes
and with the passing of each anxious year.
Cars surrounded us, mysteriously driven .
Houses loomed tall but unreal-none ever knew us.
Nothing existed for us in this world except
our games. Our balls. Their glorious curves.
Not even children . But sometimes, alas, one,
one ephemeral one, would be struck by a flying ball.
In Memoriam:
Egon von Rilke
