Monday, February 14, 2011

Change your life...


Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life. 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke 

I love this poem. I love the last line. It's what echoes in my head when I feel disconnected...I remind myself that my happiness, my glee, my light, is all in my hands.   

Prompt #42: Write a piece about changing your life.

1 comment:

Joanne said...

wow - quite profound. I need to digest this whole poem. As far as changing my life, I've been holding to my 2011 resolution to not worry stuff to death. So far so good. What'll happen, will happen. I'm just not getting into a tizzy and that seems to work.