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. 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. The Panther [size=+1]His tired gaze -from passing endless bars-has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.To him there seem to be a thousand bars,and out beyond these bars exists no world.His supple gait, the smoothness of strong stridesthat gently turn in ever smaller circlesperform a dance of strength, centered deep withina will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable.But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,the pupils of his eyes dilate as imagesof past encounters enter while through his limbsa tension strains in silenceonly to cease to be, to die within his heart.[/size][size=+1][/size] [size=+1][/size] [size=+1]two versions of the RM Rilke poem The panther...hope you guys are equally inspired by this poem.[/size]
