it belonged to no one

You playmates of mine in the scattered parks of the city,

small friends from childhood of long ago:

how we found and liked one another, hesitantly,

and, like the lamb with the talking scroll,

spoke with our silence. When we were filled with joy

it belonged to no one: it was simply there.

And how it dissolved among all the adults who passed by

and in the fears of the endless year.

Wheels rolled past us, we stood and stared at the carriages;

horses surrounded us, solid but untrue--and none 

of them ever knew us. What in the world was real?

Nothing. Only the balls. Their magnificent arches.

Not even the children . . . But sometimes one,

oh a vanishing one, stepped under the plummeting ball.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

 In memorial: Egon von Rilke
(beloved cousin of Rilke who died young)