posted August 09, 2006 06:36 PM              

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The Panther

by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

(trans. stephen mitchell)

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posted August 09, 2006 06:37 PM              

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Love Song
by Ranier Marie Rilke

How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul?
How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote lost objects,
in some dark and silent place that doesn't resonate
when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

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posted August 09, 2006 06:41 PM              

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I live my life in widening rings

I live my life in widening rings
which spread over earth and sky.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but that is what I will try.

I circle around God, the primordial tower,
and I circle ten thousand years long;
and I still don't know if I'm a falcon,
a storm, or an unfinished song.

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Posts: 352
From: USA
Registered: Sep 2020

posted January 25, 2021 03:18 PM            

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Ba-dump-bump-bing!

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