disquietingmuses

"Open Invitation"  Copyright 2000 Sharon Carter

The Panther

Its view became so dulled from the passing
of the bars that it holds nothing more.
It is as if there were a thousand bars
and behind the thousand bars no world.

The soft orbit of strong supple steps,
which turns in the smallest of all suites,
is like a dance of strength around a center,
in which a colossal will sits stupefied.

Only sometimes the curtain of the pupil
delays sleep. Then a memory moves inside,
moves through the limbs' strained silence.
They hear themselves in the heart that moves on.

Rainer Maria Rilke
translation by Jorge Wolfe copyright 2000

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