Reading The Duino Elegies

I think I shall read
the Duino Elegies again
though I do not know
if I can for

every time I do try
I end up walking
around and around
the apartment thinking

very hard or doing something
like it that takes up
my whole head and world-
view as if Rilke himself

was whispering in my ear — no! —
shouting it with all his might
that comes out as a friend’s
voice might come out

telling you a little truth
about yourself and you
can’t stand to hear it though
it is good it’s all good

and great and awful at once
like the angels in the poem
who are terrible and serene
as they reveal and encourage

you to love them and to fall
asleep within their folded wings
and fall back and rock with them
on their way back to — what?

Rilke knew too much of them
and he tries to tell me of them
and so much more as I pace my living room
with closed eyes and vivid thought

never getting much past
terrible angels in the poem
but glad to try again and still
I am a happier man with this

in my back pages
like an old song just remembered
which makes me weep
and sigh under the fullness of all

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T