A Walk by Rilke

Already my gaze is on the hill, that sunlit one,
up ahead on the path I've scarcely started.
In the same way, what we couldn't grasp grasps us:
blazingly visible, there in the distance --

and changes us, even if we don't reach it,
into what we, scarcely sensing it, already are;
a gesture signals, answering our gesture . . .
But we feel only the opposing wind.


(Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Edward Snow)