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ARTS AND CULTURE

After Rilke: Visitation of the Virgin

  • 01 July 2019

 

Selected poems

 

 

After Rilke's Marienleben: Annunciation to Mary

Understand: not that she was unnerved

By the angel. As much as some others begin

When a pillar of moonlight beams through

Any curtained room, illuminating dust

Particles in the air, would Mary have been

Made perturbed by the image the angel chose

By which to be made visible. Could Mary

Divine how dull, how monochromatic, lingering

Here can be? (Ah, if we just knew how

Undeniably pure she was! Fabled, once,

When resting, the mythological beast spied her

In the woods and looking lost itself until it could —

Without any coupling with its own kind —

Conceived the genuine animal, the unicorn,

The creature of light.) Though he entered not,

But that he bent his head in deference, so close

To her, this young man, this particular angel,

Joined with her in their gaze of each other,

As her eyes just glanced up, as if all around

Them became void, and what untold numbers

Saw, exhibited, suffered, appeared to be

Forced within them: only herself and him —

The perceived and the perceiver, the eye itself

And the delight of the eye, absolutely nowhere

Else but here in only this place. See it!

How frightening this is! How afraid they both are!

 

Then out of the angel's mouth poured melodious song.

 

 

 

After Rilke's Marienleben: Visitation of the Virgin

Like the inscription of an initial letter,

It went smoothly for her, but often in scaling

A rise, the wonder momentarily flashed

Throughout her body, and breathlessly

She straightened herself upon the towering,

 

Windswept Judean hills. Not by the sheer

Vista below could her abundance ever be

Measured; striding, with each step she believed

No one could transcend the largesse she carried.

 

She needed to place her hand upon Elisabeth's

Body, which was even riper than hers,

And they both doddered toward the other

To stroke one another's robes and unpinned hair.

 

Each, with a sanctum within her reserve,

Found asylum with their most immediate female

Relation. Oh, the Savior in her was in blossom,

But the ecstatic that already stirred in her cousin's

Womb kindled the diminutive Baptist into kicking.

 

 

 

After Rilke's Marienleben: Birth of Christ

If you hadn't possessed simplicity, then how

Could this occur to you which illumines the darkest night?

God, who thundered over all peoples, now

Recreates himself with tenderness and shines within you

 

To light the world. Did you conceive of him possibly any greater?

 

But what is greatness? Straight through to the very core

Of matter where he passes moves his absolute providence.

Not even a star possesses the arc of such a highway.

Know these kings are great.

 

They heave before your lap

 

Treasures which they discern as nonpareil,

And perhaps you are even