you can barely distinguish me

I have hymns you haven't heard.

There is an upward soaring

in which I bend close.

You can barely distinguish me

from the things that kneel before me.

They are like sheep, they are grazing.

I am the shepherd on the brow of the hill.

When evening draws them home

I follow after, the dark bridge thudding,

and the vapor rising from their backs

hides my own homecoming.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Monastic Life

translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

art from the cave of chauvet-pont-d'arc