Where is the Rhine beyond the clouds?
The ubiquitous image
of the Rhine, the pure archetype
of a wholly different Rhine, timeless –
that perpetuates and extends the eternal moment
giving birth to the Rhine, running through
the German groves, while I dictate these lines?
Thus Plato instilled it in generations,
whom William Ockham later opposed.
He would have said that the Rhine (which comes
from the word “rinan”, meaning “to flow”) – is nothing
but an empty nickname, given by people
to the fury of the waters that tear century after century
from snow-capped huts to coastal dunes.
Well, perhaps. Let them solve it themselves.
Who am I to become – in the repeated days
of radiant light and dusky nights
with their joys of books, loves, and songs,
and with the burden of fears and hopes?
Or someone else, with his mysterious face
whose pale shadow, scattered
and shattered now against impatient glass?
Beyond the boundary of death, perhaps, we’ll learn
who we truly are – word or essence.
