Fire's Reflection - Rainer Maria Rilke

Perhaps it's no more than the fire's reflection
on some piece of gleaming furniture
that the child remembers so much later
like a revelation.

And if in his later life, one day
wounds him like so many others,
it's because he mistook some risk
or other for a promise.

Let's not forget the music, either,
that soon had hauled him
toward absence complicated
by an overflowing heart....

---

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) Germany
Translated by A. Poulin

Source: Poemhunter