April 25: “[Do you still remember: falling stars]”

Do you still remember: falling stars,
how they leapt slantwise through the sky
like horses over suddenly held-out hurdles
of our wishes — did we have so many?–
for stars, innumerable, leapt everywhere;
almost every gaze upward became
wedded to the swift hazard of their play,
and our heart felt like a single thing
beneath that vast disintegration of their brilliance–
and was whole, as if it would survive them!

— Rainer Maria Rilke