*this poem is in .jpg to preserve formatting

*this is the unformatted text of the poem
after rainer maria rilke

you, the poet, have become
world weary, word-wrought.
and god is all but extinct.

and so you gather your
einsamkeit, your footfall —
so tender — and let them lead you

to a village in a valley,
the furrow of the rhône,
a fortress with crow-stepped
gable, the number six.

it is there, in this first-floor
room, where, for nine months,
something elegiac gestates.

was, wenn verwandlung nicht?

from 100 years and 100 meters
away, across a shared melancholy
of solitude and shadows, i awake
on the cold floor of a votive chapel.

saint agnès tolls her lone bell,
expels me into a february frost
and down a country lane, where

my eyes rise to see
taupe-towering, stone-steady,
wood-hemmed

and you, under a silver apricot
the formidable canton backdrop of
snowcapped alps.

_
Natalye Childress (she/her) is a Berlin-based editor, writer, and translator. She has an MA in creative writing, and her first book, The Aftermath of Forever, was published by Microcosm Publishing in 2014. Find her at https://www.natalye.com