Fire's Reflection

Perhaps it's no more than the fire's reflection
on some piece of gleaming furniture
that the child remembers so much later
like a revelation.

And if in his later life, one day
wounds him like so many others,
it's because he mistook some risk
or other for a promise.

Let's not forget the music, either,
that soon had hauled him
toward absence complicated
by an overflowing heart....


Translated by A. Poulin
that wants help from us.

Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke