Entries Tagged 'poetic' ↓

The Man Watching
by Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can’t bear without a friend,
I can’t love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler’s sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

http://www.cdra.org.za/creativity/Rainer%20Maria%20Rilke%20-%20The%20Man%20Watching.htm

Miles and miles beneath the wheels,
we made it back under a shining sun,
mostly - but buffeted by biting winds -
it didn’t even snow on us ’til Washington.

And now home.
Like an ointment I wait for it to sink in,
to fill the vacancies and mend the lacerations,
to calm and to nourish and to fill -
I’ll overflow with everything that’s been lacking -
I’ll merge my Dionysus with my Apollo
and find peace in my passion and
slumber in my wine.

As I sleep, dreams of assignments overdue,
assignments I’ve already done,
assignments who may only haunt me through ghosts.
I’ve overcome them all.

Home.
I’ll never ride out, now,
without knowing when and how I’ll return.

Yesterday I bought a suit and a haircut,
and now I’ve got the world on a string.
At least until the string’s cut,
then it won’t mean a thing.

Interviews, moving, assignments,
fond farewells and
fond hellos
and
the

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

that beckons like a drum,
that thrums through the wires;
the distance between home and home.

It was never a choice,
but it was always hard not choosing.

silence marks keep filling up the page

angled lines of desperation stretch across

margin to margin like evening shadows

reach across the endless winter

what of that pink railway carriage

what of those blue cushions

we’d have never reached out

had we but known

City lights glowing through the blizzard;
the air infused with falling faerie
dancing gently down to rest in piles
among their silent brethren.

Twenty minutes through the blizzard,
or through the sunny cold,
or the tepid spring;
that walk to class down
charming city streets.

The closeness of the east,
one city piled atop another;
this family of cities
that I never took the time to see.

Energy. Frenetic energy built
around community; the
we-are-all-in-this-together-ness
that made each word bearable.
The thrill of the hunt,
bringing down that big assignment so
we could feast during winter.

And more, perhaps. Perhaps more
than I can say. But
I can say,
Oh, things,

how I long to miss you.