Poems

RILKE IN TOLEDO

If all at one single moment,
the living, the dead and the angels
could imagine one visible thing,
they would be dreaming of Toledo
and, like me, of keeping a cheese shop in the Calle de la
     Magdalena
or being host of the Hotel Castilla,
and soon at the fall of evening
in this city that lights up like one risen from the dead
of taking refuge in my garret
that an old mad mason built for me,
wearing the skin off his hands to give me
the happiness of a moment,
of this moment I am dreaming of.
In my long walks among rocks and stones
...