Ode to Rilke (and the poets who go Deep)

I have been moved to reread Robert Bly's translation from the German of a selection of Rilke's poems.
I will write more about that later. Today is a busy chore day and includes both golf and football. But I was inspired to do a first draft of a poem and want to get it down while I can still hear it's voice.


Ode to Rilke (and the poets who go Deep)

I want to thank the poets
whose soft-seeming words
become hammers of steel,
iron feathers of fierce grace,
tools to wake me up.

But I sit like a bird
in the golden cage
of my twenty-four seven life.
Gazing with yearning
at the open door,
afraid to fly.

I feel the agony
of being torn
between the safety
of the known
and the roaring desire
to shed Rilke's "husk"
to lie down at Adya's words
"Rest and be taken."

More on Rilke and Bly after chores, golf and football.