Because someone once wanted you, 
I know we can want you. 
If we too reject all depths:
If a mountain has gold 
and no one to dig it up,
the river will bring it to light, 
reaching into the stones’ stillness, 
the mother lode. 

Even if we don’t want to: 
God awakens.

—

Rainer Maria Rilke was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as a significant writer in the German language.

Robert Fernandez is the author of the poetry collections We Are Pharaoh, Pink Reef, and Scarecrow. He is co-translator of Azure, a translation of the work of Stéphane Mallarmé.