I Am, O Anxious One

I am, O Anxious One. Don’t you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthy feelings?
They yearn so high that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles around your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can’t you see?
Don’t you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision, as upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into star’s vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.

.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
As translated by Stephen Mitchell