Part III. A Glance: To Stalk and Freeze and Fire/Eternity’s Outpost
Introduction: What Key Are We In, By the Way?
* The Panther
From seeing the bars, his seeing is so exhausted
that it no longer holds anything anymore.
To him the world is bars, a hundred thousand
bars, and behind the bars, nothing.
The lithe swinging of that rhythmical easy stride
which circles down to the tiniest hub
is like a dance of energy around a point
in which a great will stands stunned and numb.
Only at times the curtains of the pupil rise
without a sound . . . then a shape enters,
slips though the tightened silence of the shoulders,
reaches the heart, and dies. ~Rainier Maria Rilke, Panther
* Interpretation by Fallingcat:
A friend told me these opening lines (Sein Blick hinter der Stäbe... / His glance from behind the bars...), but, frustratingly, not whose translation it was. He pointed out that ‘Blick’ has a double meaning in German - glance/ view – so the same word refers to the blank look in his eye and his image of the bars.
I’m sure others have thought of this but I’m fairly new to Rilke and haven’t read it anywhere yet. I see the bars as ambiguous (and it’s ambiguity that makes good poetry so powerful and moving), both real and as a metaphor for the barriers we erect to hide our vulnerability or defend our egos. As explored in Rilke’s “First a childhood….” And sustaining such psychic defences is exhausting and makes us tired like the panther.
* “My powers have been taken from me". "Then, please, say a prayer, recite a litany, work a miracle". "Impossible", the Master replied, "I have forgotten everything". They both fell to weeping. ~’Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea,’ Elie Wiesel
* Questions: Door At the Bottom of the Stairs
...by then you're out the door and it's too late, because you have a date with destiny.
~8/30/11
Canto 1: Distances Between Theory and Practice
"Be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore." ~ John Keats once
advised his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley
* An Infinite Distance
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke
* Surprising and Intriguing Exploration and Connections
o "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley." ~Robert Burns, The Mouse
"1 go among the fields and catch a glimpse of a stoat or a fieldmouse peeping out of
the withered grass--the creature hath a purpose and its eyes are bright with it."
~Keats, in an 1819 letter
* On turning her up in her nest, with the plough, November, 1785. All readers of Burns know of the "Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beastie" but not many understand the sadness and despair contained within the lines of this poem. What was the Bard saying when he was inspired by turning up a fieldmouse in her nest one day while out ploughing? - George Wilkie
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
* “Malacology” was coined in English in the nineteenth century, from the Greek malakos, “soft,” by way of Latin and French. “Whatever the forest and field have to offer: fungi, lichens, green plants, worms, centipedes, certain insects, animal feces [is there any other sort?], carrion, other slugs.” ~Patrick Kurp, Anecdotal Evidence
…a network of meeting points between eternity and time. ~Annie Dillard
‘The fields of heaven covered with eye-brights’ ~Hopkins, Notes
One must hold ideas loosely in the relative spirit…not disquiet oneself about the absolute…
I once visited a zoo and looked directly into the eyes of a snow leopard…Annie Dillard
