Tomas Silvestre


RILKE'S ECHOES

I walked through London's crowds
people said that here I'd find many, many bees,
all busy, busy, bees who were making honey
and all I wanted on my foreigner lips was just a taste.

Many days passed and faded and I saw not a single flower
- I looked in every corner.
And I began to suspect
that I had been overcome by a foggy, fearful spell

- until I found, just by chance,
some poetic voices,
the voices of people thought strange,
hovering around where the honey really was.

So from now on, when I look at streets
in the grip of the daily rush hour's grasp
I see the gasping people less as bees,
more perhaps as angry wasps.

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