HAIBUN after Rilke

 Still Regard: Hearst Castle
            Du mußt dein Ändern leben—Rainer-Maria Rilke*

A weathered statue—limbless, headless, groin chipped away—leans from a plinth hemmed in by manicured privet and low fountain spray. It seems out of place in this postcard garden.

The docent calls it "epic" as the tour group fans out—ringtones and selfies, scent of Tic-Tacs and sunscreen. Below us, the glare of the Pacific, piped-in church bells drifting up from the seaside resort town.

I linger behind. The ancient torso draws me in, a stranger's presence against my own. That cracked sternum above a navel shallow as breath. That tilted stance—both of us heeding the distant thunder beyond the ridge.

        heat-frayed
        a bed of gardenias
        open to bees

__________

*"You must change your life." Rilke's final line from "Archaic Torso of Apollo," Selected Poetry of Rainer-Maria Rilke (trans. Stephen Mitchell), Penguin Random House LLC, 1982.
The poem can be read here.

Frogpond 48.3, Autumn 2025