July 29, 2011

The Gazelle (Gazella Dorcas)

Turn, my lover, and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag on the rugged hills
- painting of the Song of Songs

Enchanted one: how can the harmony of two
Latin words ever attain the rhythm
that ripples through you like a promise.
From your brow rise leaf and lyre.

And all that is you turns to metaphor
in love poems whose phrases light
as rose petals remain in the expression
of one who, after reading, closes her eyes

to see you: almost in flight,
borne away in leaps that cease their springing
only when you stand stock still to listen;

as when a woman bathing in a woodland stream
pauses suddenly, and the water
mirrors her quick-turned face.

New Poems

4 comments:

  1. this didnt really hit me til the last stanza, then it struck home. and i loved it;her. but can one truly pause suddenly? shouldn't pause have it's own gear free from definition?
    lc

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  2. it's so like a daisy chain of photographs beginning deep inside, passing through her closed eyes, until we stand watching her by a woodside pool. lost in the slowly unfurling metaphors. steven

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  3. Who is the translator for this version of The Gazelle?

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  4. The translators of all the poems posted at this blog are Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, from their book A Year with Rilke.

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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!