Morning Becomes Elektra

sculpture by auguste rodin

Morning Becomes Elektra

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it

--blame yourself for not being poet enough to

call forth its riches.”--Rainer Maria Rilke.

Once

you become a septuagenarian

                     and the media is laden 

                                  with the news of the deaths

                                  of younger men;

once

you have served your Masters

for at least fifty years          & you are allowed to retire;

once

you mount some of the new technology

& put yourself out there as a person,

                                           a poet,

                                           a philosopher,

                                           a photographer,

                                           a pariah,

a gadfly, a sage, a fool, or a prankster,

you begin to see that the road ahead

                 does have a specific destination,

                 & you can almost recognize it on clear mornings;

                                            a threshold,

                                            a stargate,

                                            a hole in the ground,

                                            a nifty niche

in a stone crematorium oven, or

                 a shining city of white domes & loved ones,

                                            infinity, the key, the answer,

                                            theTruth;

                 or complete darkness,

                 oblivion, emptiness, nothingness--

as the Road Behind stretches

beyond the rear horizon,

beyond memory or grasp,

                 peopled by your children & grandchildren

                 & steaming harried hordes of strangers;

Sometimes

you can hear the growls & howling

              of that mysterious pack of beasts

              that dog your heels, but never

show themselves.

So your only logical reasonable logistical choice

                                is to passionately couple 

              with the Moment,

              with each new breath, finding sweet inspiration

within the mere awakening into each new day,

eagerly seeking out pods of your personal Joy;

               the cat on your lap,

               the Asian tea steaming in a red China cup,

               the electric blue of the Southern sky

around the glaciers on Mt. Rainier,

               the wind in the cluster of fat maple leaves

dancing on that hundred year old tree next door,

               the special way the morning sun creates

geometric shadow designs around your newly stained

deck railings,

               the warm memory of that kiss your younger wife

gave you as she left for work,

               the incredible taste of hand-picked tomatoes

out of your garden,

               the look & smell of your backyard lawn

after the sprinklers have soaked it, watching

               the mist that rises out of the heat

from the morning’s embrace;

then after the two hours of succor & sustenance,

you sit down at the feet of the iMac demi-god screen,

& you anxiously prepare to contact

                the cyber-community, all those folks you 

                almost love, even though

you’ve never actually met them

in every tiny corner of the globe.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB FFA

Would you like to hear the author read this Rilke-inspired poem to you?