Stone and Star

THE PANTHER
—Rainer Maria Rilke

In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly—. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

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Rattlesnake Review #10 (due out next Wednesday) will include a review of Blood on the Page, the new anthology from Sutterwriters (LAMP), along with poems from some of its writers. Chico is starting a similar program. To launch its new writing project, Telling Our Stories, for cancer patients, survivors, families and friends, Enloe Medical Center’s Cancer Center presents “A Taste of Journaling.” The informal panel/workshop features Mary Jane DeRoss, Theresa Marcis, Rebecca Senoglu, Margaret Dufon and Patricia Wellingham-Jones discussing the values and principles of journal writing, complete with examples from their collections. Warm-up writing exercises will be included. This event takes place on June 14, 2006 from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at Enloe Cancer Center Conference Room, Fountain Medical Plaza, 251 Cohasset Road (across from Chico Sports Club), Chico, CA. The public is invited to attend. For further information call Rebecca Senoglu at 530-332-3856 or email Rebecca.Senoglu@Enloe.org.

Don't forget to attend the Annual General Meeting of the SPC Board, which will be happening this Monday, June 12 at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.) from 5:45-7:45 PM. Please plan to go to this important meeting in order to elect our new Board and to provide much-needed feedback about the year ahead.

Two blogs you might want to check out: Rattlechapper and sometimes-reviewer Shawn Pittard writes for The Great American Pinup (http://greatamericanpinup.blogspot.com) and Molly Fisk of Nevada City has a new blog: http://velocity7.com/poetrybootcampblog.

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GARDEN TENDERLY DARKENED, ALMOST
—Rainer Maria Rilke

Garden, tenderly darkened, almost, by nearness of rain or thunder,
garden under hesitant hands.
As though in their beds more earnestly plants now must wonder
how it could be that a gardener invented their kinds.

For it's of him they are thinking: admixed to pure freedom, their trueness,
to them his laborious care, or acceptance of failure, clings.
Even they feel the pull of our curious tutor, that twoness;
we awaken the counterweight in the very lightest of things.

(Translated by Michael Hamburger)

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EVENING
—Rainer Maria Rilke

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, not immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.

(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

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—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)