Perspective

By Rainer Maria Rilke

You are the future, the immense morning sky

turning red over the prairies of eternity.

You are the rooster-crow after the night of time,

the dew, the early devotions, and the Daughter,

the Guest, the Ancient Mother, and Death.

You are the shape that changes its own shape,

that climbs out of fate, towering,

that which is never shouted for, and never mourned for,

and no more explored than a savage wood.

You are the meaning deepest inside things,

that never reveals the secret of its owner.

And how you look depends on where we are:

from a boat you are shore, from the shore a boat.