Nice possible association here. From a guy who calls himself Thomas Pynchon's Ghost on social media

[Mark Kohut]

My initial impressions after reading the first line of Mason & Dixon: Pynchon,
seriously man. Rilke?! Again? How much is Thurn and Taxis paying you over
at the Duino Castle? "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides
of Outbuildings, as of Cousins..." -Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon "O you
few, playmates of a former childhood in the scattered gardens of the city: how
we found each other and slowly grew close and, like the lamb with the
talking scroll spoke with our silence. When together we felt happiness, it
belonged to none of us. Whose was it? And how it seeped away amid the
rushing people, and in the worries of the long year. Carriages rolled past
us, strange and transient, houses stood around us, strong but false, - and
none of it ever acknowledges us. What in all that was real? Nothing. Only
the balls. Their glorious arcs. Not even the children.... But sometimes one
stepped- oh one vanishing - under the plummeting orb." -Rainer Marie Rilke,
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part 2, Sonnet 8; Edward Snow translation
<https://twitter.com/kvtp11/status/1745644740664578317/photo/1>