My Little Poem: 'Whoever you are'

"Entrance" by Ranier Maria Rilke

Hello, Poetry Friend

This is usually the last day of February. This year it isn’t. This year the month is too long, too many Thursdays to make sense of.

I have been working on putting together a poetry collection. There are five stacks of colored index cards laid out on my office floor, in front of the windows, so I can see them in the light.

I add. I subtract. I rearrange.

This wasn’t the poetry plan. There was something else I wanted to write first — a book with birds. But I need to write this first. I need to honor a decade: 2012-2022. I need to honor the me that I often wish I wasn’t.

My guide during this process? A poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Dana Gioia.

Entrance

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

–Dana Gioia, translated from the German of Rainer Maria Rilke

I tend to realize things “out of doors tonight,” although my tonight is in the early morning, before sunrise, when I walk in the dark. As I walk, I comprehend that decade’s truth. It is “a huge, black tree.” My huge, black tree. I need to honor my own eyes that “have forgotten how to see.”

Rilke/Gioia tell us to “Lift up into the dark” this “huge, black tree,” to “put it in the heavens: tall, alone,” to “gently set it free.” That’s my task this month and next, to let these “words still in [my] mouth” ripen.

Who am I to attempt such an Entrance?

Just another poet.

After all, it’s just "Infinity,” and it’s open to anyone with eyes to see. To me. To you.

“Whoever you are.”

“Whoever you are.”

Poetry Journal

• This thing you carry — is it “a huge, black tree”? If not, what does it look like?

• What does the poet accomplish by repeating the phrase “Whoever you are”? And why do you think those phrases are not next to each other?

• What does the title “Entrance” mean to you?

• Write your own poem about what needs Entrance. Give it a strong anchoring image. If you like, email me what you write.

Happy poeming!

Megan