1053. The Panther - Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Robert Bly

Jardin des Plantes, Paris

From seeing and seeing the seeing has become so exhausted

it no longer sees anything anymore.

The world is made of bars, a hundred thousand

bars, and behind the bars, nothing.

The lithe swinging of that rhythmical easy stride

that slowly circles down to a single point

is like a dance of energy around a hub,

in which a great will stands stunned and numbed.

At times the curtains of the eye lift

without a sound—then a shape enters,

slips through the tightened silence fo the shoulders,

reaches the heart and dies.

1052. For Those Who Would Govern - Joy Harjo

 For Those Who Would Govern - Joy Harjo (A member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation

( I know this is not a poem but......)

First question: Can you first govern yourself?

Second question: What is the state of your own household?

Third question: Do you have a proven record of community service

and compassionate acts?

Fourth question: Do you know the history and laws of your principalities?

Fifth question: Do you follow sound principles? Look for fresh vision to lift all the inhabitants of the land, including animals, plants, 

elements, all who share this earth?

Sixth question: Are you owned by lawyers, bankers, insurance agents,

lobbyists, or other politicians, anyone else who would unfairly

profit by your decisions?

Seventh question: Do you have authority by the original keepers of

the lands, those who obey natural law and are in the service of 

the lands on which you stand.

1051. Singing Everything - Joy Harjo (A member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation)

 Singing Everything - Joy Harjo (A member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation)

Once there were songs for everything,

Songs for planting, for growing, for harvesting,

For eating, getting drunk, falling asleep,

For sunrise, birth, mind-break, and war.

For death (those are the heaviest songs and they

Have to be pried from the earth with shovels of grief)

Now all we hear are falling-in-love songs and

Falling apart after falling in love songs.

The earth is leaning sideways

And a song is emerging from the floods

And fires. Urgent tendrils lift toward the sun.

You must be friends with silence to hear.

The songs of the guardians of silence are the most powerful—

They are the most rare.