Autumn Day

by Rainer Maria Rilke

 (translation by Edward Snow, 1991)

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your long shadows on the sundials,
and on the meadows let the winds go free.

Command the last fruits to be full;
give them just two more southern days,
urge them on to completion and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Who has no house now, will never build one.
Who is alone now, will long remain so,
will stay awake, read, write long letters
and will wander restlessly up and down
the tree-lined streets, when the leaves are drifting.

“Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.” 

~ Shunryu Suzuki quote

“All paths are the same, leading nowhere.

Therefore, pick a path with  heart!”

~ Carlos Castaneda quote

Come on baby light my fire

dancing in the street

a fire escape overhead

"Wabash River Woods"

Ironweed

It’s a short walk to the river -

down a dirt road along a birch

and sycamore forest.

Sometimes I pass joggers

or children with dogs.  Today

the sky is wide-open blue

and grasshoppers share the air

with damselflies.  On the

horizon, two young men -

dressed in black, bald,

with pierced earlobes, noses,

probably tongues.  Skin heads

I say to myself.  An alarm

sounds in my primordial brain

and I rush to the river’s edge

where, if pressed, I could

escape into the current; but,

my hat blows off, lassos

their attention and we meet

iris to iris, pupil to pupil.

To my surprise, they have

joined hands and are

just two lovers walking.

At night, I watch the news

from Iraq, the latest tsunami,

earthquake, hurricane.  When

I fall asleep, I dream the river

has cut a new channel.  Rifles

turn into sedge grass, bombs

into fireflies, soldiers into

mere boys.  In the woods,

the language of fear

is extinguished

and the sound sounds like

          intolerance

slowly melting

          down to stone.

“Ironweed” was first published in Issue # 8 of Raving Dove, Fall/Winter 2006/2007 www.ravingdove.org

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable. 

~William Wordsworth

“To the waters, and the wild, with a Faerie, hand in hand,
for the world is more full of weeping  … than you can understand.”
-  W.B. Yeats

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