CERTAIN IT IS HE BROUGHT WITH HIM THE SUNRISE OF BIRDSONG

CERTAIN IT IS HE BROUGHT WITH HIM THE SUNRISE OF BIRDSONG

For Rainer Maria Rilke

Certain it is he brought with him

The sunrise of birdsong

In the tree of the heart

As if the air had never been  quite

That crystalline and ringing not even in the sylvan rains

So that now I can only hear

The bouquet of music he proffered

At home later at his desk in his charmed circle of lamplight

After solitary excursions

As it came into his mind

The whole earth was full 

Of the dimming of light

Of angels in sad retreat from 

The din of earth, the insufficiency of bells

And only he could translate the beauteous swells

Pouring out into the receding tides

So that we were transfigured into the poem of the far distances

yet incomparably near.

mary angela douglas 27 may 2024