SOLITARY PERSON

Last weekend I walked the fields of shadow and sunlight surrounded by soft white wildflowers and an old pig barn. It was early morning and all was still. There was a certain meditative quality surrounding me as I snapped photos. The tree with it wind-sweep stature, giving way to chronic ageism yet providing a youthful ballerina stance for me. The white pig barn fading along with the old tree. I was in my element. 


When I got back to my abode in the woods, I looked up a favorite poem selection by Rainer Maria Rilke.  His poem is titled The Solitary Person. It underscored my morning feelings as I observed the quiet landscape. Here it is for you.


Among so many people cozy in their homes,
I am like a man who explores far-off oceans.
Days with full stomachs stand on their tables;
I see a distant land full of images.


I sense another world close to me,
perhaps no more lived in than the moon;
they, however, never let a feeling alone,
and all the words they use are so worn.


The living things I brought back with me
hardly peep out, compared with all they own.
In their native country they were wild;
here they hold their breath from shame.

RILKE AND FLOWERS

WILD CHICORY FLOWERS

See the flowers, so faithful to Earth.
We know their fate because we share it.
Were they to grieve for their wilting,
that grief would be ours to feel . . .

If you could enter their dreaming and dream with them deeply,
you would come back different to a different day,
moving so easily from that common depth.

Or maybe just stay there: they would bloom and welcome you,
all those brothers and sisters tossing in the meadows,
and you would be one of them.

 Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke,

 In Praise of Mortality by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

WILD DAYLILIES