Translation of Rainer Maria Rilke
We can’t ever see his unheard-of head,
wherein lies ripened apple eyeballs. Still
his torso glows white like a streetlight’s chill,
in that it sees, reversed inside instead,
with halts and gleams. Else the quiet in the bend
of the breast wouldn’t blind, and in a swish
of loins a smile otherwise could not push
to that point, which lured the generation.
Else the stone would stand disfigured and ephemeral
under the shoulder’s translucent fall
and would not flicker so, like fur of animals
and would not break from all its edges like
a star: for there is no place here at all
that does not see you. You must change your life.
