A Sweet Truth

A sweet truth brushes my soul, caresses my breast.

While I reach toward my heart, it dances over my hand,
trembling through my fingers, slipping past, but not dropped;
apprehended, but not grasped.

My elbow bends, extending my arm in a sweep of space,
but the truth eludes the circle drawn;
it instead imposes its own presence:
my wrists yield to its press. It buoys my arms,
giving lift to my shoulders and lightness to my head.

My torso stretches up against its force, this truth.
Its weight teeters upon my wrists and I balance the arch of my back
with a forward shift of my loins, forward
until my knees fold and my
head snaps front to keep from falling;
balanced but dropped
to my knees with a jolt,
head bowed.

The truth that shored my shoulders closes in like a shadow
of immense light: I collapse in a ball,
encompassed,
overwhelmed. Truth enters my sides,
my belly, my vessels, my glands,
my lungs until I respire its essence,
sweat its virtue,
bleed its words.


Dedicated to John Nimmiti

Translating Rilke, I.55

From The Book of Hours, I.55
Much of this translation was taken from Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. I also translated several additional lines they left out.
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The poets have scattered you
   (a storm tore through their stammering)
   but I want to gather you up again into a vessel
   that could make you glad.

I wander through the winds that churn you:
   that churn you a thousand times over.
I retrieve all the pieces of you that I find:
   from the blind man who used you for his drinking cup,
   from the butler who hid you in the back of the closet,
   from the beggar who held you out to passers-by.
Sometimes the largest parts of your soul I found in a child.

You see, I am a Collector.

One who, like a shepherd, hides behind the back of his hand
   so that you don't see him watching you
   (you would like to evade his notice, turning instead
    into the stranger's sites)

One who dreams of making you complete, and, in so doing
   completes himself.

Translating Rilke, I.3

From The Book of Hours, I.3
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I have many cossacked brothers living in the South:
   their spectres rise through cloistered laurel.
Through humanity ablaze in their Madonnas I recognize
   the ember of God - and often dream of young Titians.

But when I peer over the edge of myself,
   God - my God - is dark.
A knot of a hundred buried roots drinking in silence.

All I know is that I arise out of this ferment whose
   silence stills my branches
   except for the rustle of the Wind.

Acknowledgment to Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy in Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God for the image of "ferment" from Rilke's word choice "Waerme".

Translating Rilke, III.6

From The Book of Hours, III.6
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O Lord, grant to each his own death.
The dying discharged from each life:
   by the love one gained,
   the meaning made and
   anguish that remained.

Translating Rilke, I.40

From The Book of Hours, I.40
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I have hymns I keep to myself.

Though the celestory of my being looms high above you,
my soul bows with you at the rail. You perceive me to be
too grand for you but I am not. You barely discern me
from among all the others kneeling with you.

You graze like a flock of sheep while I watch among you
until evening draws you home. Then I return with you
in the sound of muffled hooves on the bridge,
hiding my own return in the steam rising from your backs.