To change myself

2 responses to “To change myself”

1. notesfromaroom | March 30, 2009 at 2:21 pm |

   Archaic Torso of Apollo

   We cannot know his legendary head
   with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
   is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
   like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

   gleams in all its power. Otherwise
   the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
   a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
   to that dark center where procreation flared.

   Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
   beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
   and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

   would not, from all the borders of itself,
   burst like a star: for here there is no place
   that does not see you. You must change your life.

   — Rilke (trans. S. Mitchell)

2. notesfornothing | March 30, 2009 at 2:21 pm |

   Archaic Torso of Apollo

   We cannot know his legendary head
   with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
   is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
   like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

   gleams in all its power. Otherwise
   the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
   a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
   to that dark center where procreation flared.

   Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
   beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
   and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

   would not, from all the borders of itself,
   burst like a star: for here there is no place
   that does not see you. You must change your life.

   — Rilke (trans. S. Mitchell)

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