On Rilke’s Duino Elegies
I.
“Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure”
Is it as Rilke supposed—
no place we can remain?
A roar as the ethereal bodies
float through mansions and mausoleums
ghettos and oil spills, caverns
closets and forests,
whispers swept by the wind
as smoke sucked through a straw
through fissures of time,
cracks of memory, consciousness
and the incomprehensible space
between each atom of every cell.
The worlds spun like fibers of a rope
and so tightly spun, are sent
spinning among the terrifying angels
in the whirlwind between
the living and the dead.
II.
“In the end, those who were carried off early no longer need us”
We must somehow forget all who we leave behind,
though some may find it difficult to forget us.
Lovers will caress the empty side of the bed
or embrace a well worn pillow, even long after the smell
of the departed has faded away. Our sisters,
and friends will pour through photographs
cut, paste, collage, cry to create lost memories.
Mothers will touch stretch marks, or perhaps
a long, deep scar, hip to hip, as was once the practice,
while fathers choose trinkets—a feather
or a stone found camping forever to be kept
on a desk or nightstand so as to maintain
some connection with the dead.
The cats alone will not be sentimental
in their mourning. They will cry out as they can,
yowling and searching the empty corners of the
unsure of how to devote their lives.
III.
“Of course, it is strange to inhabit the Earth no longer.”
Sooner or later they will all forget,
as I must forget once I reach the whirlwind.
I will forget my customs, so recently learned:
my morning coffee, favorite shirt, nicotine cravings
never quite filled by a fondness for lemon drops.
I will forget the price of gas and I will forget how to drive a car.
I will forget my career and the years juggling work and school.
I will forget the five years waiting tables and every
promise broken to never do it again.
I will forget the name of the first man I slept with;
the bitter pith of grapefruit; pomegranate seeds,
cilantro, curry, salt, and the slight discomfort of steak
caught between ones teeth.
I will no longer know how to button my jacket
no longer feel heat and cold and the dry whip of wind
in my face each January as I walk hunched, eyes squint
towards the sidewalk. I will forget
the winter comfort of whiskey,
and that tequila burned worse that kerosene.
I will forget family gatherings with round, pregnant aunts,
roast and meatballs and the fried chicken my uncle
insisted on each year. I will forget Grandma’s wig
and when my cousin tried to run off with Dad’s beer.
I will forget my first dog and the Christmas Eve when there was
nothing left to do but stand and cry and wait
in the cold clinic as he went still beneath my hand.
I will forget how to lace my shoes or powder my face.
I will forget my birthday and the street I grew up on
as I will forget the taste of my lovers tongue late at night
and early in the morning.
I will hang on as long as I can, but it must all slide away.
I will lose the smell of smoke, garlic, peppers,
and freshly cut grass.
There is a quiet smell on the back of my lover’s neck,
and that too I must lose
as I forget sex and lips;
sunlight and
all the colors the sky can become.
I once learned abhay means fearless.
I will forget that as well,
but I will no longer fear the ocean
or the waves that tear the world apart.
I will forget how to speak.
touch
and
forgetting will
thought
fully immersed
whirlwind now.
a spider web captured by winds
(web torn, it clings to the branch
for a moment before it is swept away).
Here, spinning.
Here all forgot,
but perhaps,
Rilke’s terrifying angels.
