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 with 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 wrestlers’ 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.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
LIVING HERE
Living here is like occupying
a five digit glove with a rickety
staircase spanning the palm.
Of course it takes courage
and some days courage hides in
the pinkey and the only way
to access it is to maneuver
the rickety staircase.
On those days, which are almost
every day, it is a waste to struggle
towards courage. I have to
bask in the contentment of the index.
And that takes some expertise on basking.
First off, I have to cease envy of the
middle. The middle is completely staid
but certain. Even using the word staid gets
me off track, correction, puts me in the ring.
The ring leads astray. The ring doesn’t
really give an accurate picture of security. Single
or married, living here takes guts and guts can
only be had by sticking out the thumb.
The thumb once bought me a ride out of
the Swiss Alps. Without the thumb I would
still be there, wandering around like Julie
Andrews without the glamor of the Von Trapps.
As it was, I stuck it out and it managed to show
up in a poem. Like this one.
Some rare days the glove curls
into a fist and I can’t make sense
of anything. But I can still write.
I can hand off words like
fingernails on a blackboard.
a five digit glove with a rickety
staircase spanning the palm.
Of course it takes courage
and some days courage hides in
the pinkey and the only way
to access it is to maneuver
the rickety staircase.
On those days, which are almost
every day, it is a waste to struggle
towards courage. I have to
bask in the contentment of the index.
And that takes some expertise on basking.
First off, I have to cease envy of the
middle. The middle is completely staid
but certain. Even using the word staid gets
me off track, correction, puts me in the ring.
The ring leads astray. The ring doesn’t
really give an accurate picture of security. Single
or married, living here takes guts and guts can
only be had by sticking out the thumb.
The thumb once bought me a ride out of
the Swiss Alps. Without the thumb I would
still be there, wandering around like Julie
Andrews without the glamor of the Von Trapps.
As it was, I stuck it out and it managed to show
up in a poem. Like this one.
Some rare days the glove curls
into a fist and I can’t make sense
of anything. But I can still write.
I can hand off words like
fingernails on a blackboard.
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