Sofia M. Starnes
If I forget you, will you disappear?
The arc of Rilke’s question seemed to spawn
out of a dustbin, remnant of a
sheer belief that minds are gods. I found carbon
in a quarry, conjured a mastodon—
immense—from which a string of elephants
rushed into view. Did this give beasts a chance
with little effort? Where cataracts fell,
had I raised rivers? Mine merely the glance.
Elsewhere, in darkness, neither stir nor swell—
Source: If I forget her, will she disappear?
From Rilke’s Sonnet to Orpheus
Trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
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