Alia
While drinking from this cup perhaps inscribed
with signs of blessing and of happiness
in an unknown tongue, I hold it in this hand
full of its own lines I can never explain.
Do these two scripts agree?
And since they are alone and secluded inside
the dome of my glance, will they speak
to one another in their own way and
be reconciled,
these two ancient texts
a drinker’s gesture brings together?
— Rainer Maria Rilke