River God of Desire

Rilke distinguished between the river and the woman, the desire and the beloved -- and the distinction is cruel, a blade:


... what does she know
of the lord of desire, who often, from the depths of his solitude,
even before she could soothe him, as though she didn’t exist,
held his head, ah, dripping with the unknown,
erect, and summoned the night to an endless uproar.
Oh the Neptune in our blood, with his appalling trident.
On the dark wind from his breast out of that spiralled conch
Listen to the night as it makes itself hollow ...

from the Third Duino Elegy, transl. Stephen Mitchell