I Heard It In Your Womb (Washing In My Wound)

Ranier Maria Rilke
Sonnets to Orpheus I.xx
transl. Stephen Mitchell

But Master, what gift shall I dedicate to you,
who taught all creatures their ears?
--My thoughts of an evening long ago,
it was springtime, in Russia--a horse...

He came bounding from the village, alone, white,
with a hobble attached to one leg,
to stay alone in the fields all night;
how the mane beat against his neck

to the rhythm of his perfect joy, in that hindered
gallop across the meadow.
What leaping went on in his stallion blood!

He felt the expanses, and oh!
He sang and he heard--your cycle of myths
was completed in him.
His image: my gift.