Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Panther -- Reine Maria Rilke

                                   in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

From seeing the bars, his seeing is so exhausted
that it no longer holds anything anymore.
To him the world is bars, a hundred thousand
bars, and behind the bars, nothing.

The lithe swinging of that rhythmical easy stride
which circles down to the tiniest hub
is like a dance of energy around a point
in which a great will stands stunned and numb

Only at times the curtains of the pupil rise
without a sound...then a shape enters,
slips through the tightened silence of the shoulders
reaches the heart, and dies

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