Page 31 - WTP Vol. VI #4

Rilke, at Chateau de Muzot
How you must have moved with such abundant
grace between the two writing desks Nanny Wunderly sent to you
whom you dedicated the sonnets to, Wera Ouckama Knoop’s ghost was commanding and impelling you.
at the Chateau de Muzot,
in Veyras —
the one on which you finished The Duino Elegies, the first desk delivered;
How chilling, how vital
that must have been to hear Wera’s voice calling out to you, whispering, as if she were Eurydice and you were her Orpheus.
and the second sent
by your patron because
she was unsure the first ever arrived, upon which you wrote the Orpheus sonnets.
How you must have danced from one desk to another as a hurricane of the spirit blew through your inner
How you must have moved
in that February light between one desk and another, beneath
the postcard of Orpheus tacked up by your current lover, Baladine
How you must have held Eurydice
in your arms, then heard Wera calling as you awakened each morning,
as an angel might, as we
now listen and are held by you.
Klossowska, your inspiration— leaving you alone to compose in such enviable solitude.
As you wrote the mother
of the dead young dancer,
thread and webbing.
Swist’s books include Huang Po,The Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) and Candling the Eggs (Shanti Arts, LLC, 2017). His forthcoming books are The Map of Eternity (Shanti Arts, LLC, 2018) and Singing for Nothing: Selected Nonfiction as Literary Memoir (The Operating System, 2018). Recent poetry and essays appear in Anchor: Where Spirituality and Social Justice Meet, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Appalachia Journal, Arts: The Arts in Theological Studies, Negative Capability, and ROSA: Women in Power & Politics.
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