Reading Rilke

let now no altering angel cloud the sight
that summons all things into the Delights.
who has read Rilke dearly

expensively has read the night
beyond the face of stars
and all we are or could be

if we but lingered, dreamed
where he had wandered, on our own stair.
let no altering angel close the ear

let no despair shut out
the sound of roses, rains reclaimed, transformed
old legends burnished and the leaves drifting down the

young winds entwined again or

the endless plains of feeling out of sight
but intimated here. but There!
in verse unscrolling like the silver disc

of Time hammered out, immemorially engraved.
not distant!
the heart cries out from trivialties absolved.

for- God.

let now no altering angel ban the flight
of the real nightingale
into the jeweled wood

from childhood fears and fragments of fears
shadowing forth great Light.

tears suspended;
the whole earth revolving within.

mary angela douglas 1 february 2017