FOR RAINER MARIA RILKE, ONCE AGAIN
What wept endlessly in you
Turned into birdsong, violins
Gold turning back into itself
Made vaster, somehow
Who can say how
The larks in a spiral
Only you could see
Against the white dawns
The breathing of statues
The décor on the tombs of kings
Of queens
The ghostly dirge for the Princess
What was so distant in you
Turned into the meadow shrines
What made you a little out of sync
From what is called human life
Was a harp in you playing as the
Wind blows through the trees
The aspiration of the child in the mirrors
An assignation with the Infinite
Your eyes grown luminous
The teacup unsteady in your hands
In a house with dark furniture
The child as a poet, the poet as a child
Caught in the amber of the world
Whose soul is halfway home
Among the trees and stars
Where always we hear
His faint echoes in
The scent of decaying leaves
More redolent and golden still
The whisper of the rose bushes
Entirely sympathetic to his cause.
mary angela douglas 15 april 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment