October 16, 2011

In a Foreign Park

Memories of the Garden at Etten
(or Ladies of Arles)

Two paths appear. They open to no one.
But sometimes, as you face them,
one allows you to proceed.
Then you think you've lost your way,
but suddenly there you are in that inner garden,
left alone again with the carved stone

and reading it again:
Baroness Britta Sophie—and once again
tracing with your finger
the time-worn number of the year.
Why does this discovery never grow faint?

What makes you stop here
just the way you did before,
as though you expected something
in this damp, untrodden place
shadowed by elms?

New Poems

1 comment:

  1. it's so often that way. returning to a place of revelation onbly to find that the revelation has passed and will not be back. what to do?! steven

    ReplyDelete

"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!