Rainer Maria Rilke

Maybe my soul’s all right. But my body’s all wrong, All bent and twisted, All this that hurts me so. My soul keeps trying, trying To straighten my body up. It hangs on my skeleton, frantic, Flapping its terrified wings. Look here, look at my hands, They look like little wet toads After a rainstorm’s over, Hopping, hopping, hopping. Maybe God didn’t like The look of my face when He saw it. Sometimes a big dog Looks right into it.

Maybe my soul is straight and good, but she’s got to lug my heart, my blood, which all hurts because it’s crooked; its weight sends her staggering. She has no bed, she has no home, she merely hangs on my sharp bones, flapping her terrible wings. And my hands are completely shot, shriveled, worn: here, take a look at how they clammily, clumsily hop like rain-crazed toads. As for all the other stuff, it’s all used up and sad and old— why doesn’t God haul me out to the muck and let me drop. Is it because of my mug with its frowning mouth? So often I would itch to be luminous and free of fog but nothing would approach except big dogs. And the dogs got zilch.

After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials and in the pastures let the rough winds fly. As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness. Direct on them two days of warmer light to hale them golden toward their term, and harry the last few drops of sweetness through the wine. Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter; who lives alone will live indefinitely so, waking up to read a little, draft long letters, and, along the city's avenues, fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

You didn't know what was in the heap. A visitor found it to contain beggars. They sell the hollow of their hands. They show the sightseer their mouths full of filth, and let him (he can afford it) peer at the mange eating away at them. In their twisted vision his stranger's face is skewed; they are pleased with their accession, and when he speaks they spew.