"Sea-toadstools, slow-flowing
seep of traffic-halted
jet-black, wet, jellyfish’d
jacks. Belligerent
brolly-bargers billow,
hail-stone and sleet harassed:
the City trawling home
to suburban harbours."
--Michael Murray via
Sonette an Orpheus, II. 29
Quiet friend of farflung furlongs, feel
how more & more your breathing swells the room.
Among the rafters of the gloomy belfry
let yourself toll. What takes its life from you
gathers to a greatness over this repast.
Embrace the transmutation,--there & back.
What's your most excruciating practice?
Does drinking twist your face? Turn into wine.
Be, tonight, out of overplus,
wizardry at your senses' intersecting;
of their weird conjunction make the sense.
Then, when all the homely round forgets,
to the sempiternal earth declare: I run.
To the rushing waters answer: I remain.
--Rainer Maria Rilke (my tr, 1987)
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