Rilke (for Mardi)Author(s): WAYNE BROWNSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 1/2, The 60th Anniversary Edition: Literature andIdeas (March - June, 2008), pp. 78-79Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40655152 .

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78

Rüke (for Mardi*) "All that was a trust But were you equal to it? Were you not always distracted by expectation, as though all this were announcing someone to love?"

The First Elegy.

For seven years, eyesockets like caves, He watched in the mountains over the city For the coming of the printless beast. But In his mind's known home, continued usual, Order undisturbed, the cushioned cat, The twitching dog asleep on the mat, And his fed fire, private, stern, Keeping its anguished dialogue of coals: Small poems in the lessening light. Now past his prime, he watched at night The logbook thicken with his soul's Entries, the low controlled fire turn

Strange shapes off its silent walls. He could discern nothing. The flagged hall Echoes, vacant, gaunt. Outside, wind leapt Howling in the leaves; an evil mist crept Inwards. He rose and dragged the wooden chair As close to the fire as he'd dare.

From here there was nowhere to go. Would the animal never rise?

The poems, he knew now, were lies, Bright hot-pawed skittery cats

Cuffing, triumphant, out of old corners Dead roaches into the light. Yet, on nights When the moon like water rose to his eyes And the fire grew silent and dark, some ghost -

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79

Dog's howl, old as the hills, would sink Inward on ribbons of wind, and, shaken, he Would think: "Time for another log". Might not

A little fire, small poem, save him? Somewhere, someone was lying still. So, For seven years he stayed, immortal as mist, But mesmerised, dulled by that same fire's glare That kept the animal out. But one night, Exhausted, slept on his chest, coals

Tiny as stars, and the animal entered.

All night in nightmare he dreamt of the wail Of the wind taking new shapes, twisting within him Like flames - and next day, was sure he'd glimpsed (Too briefly for charting; it left no trail) The shadow of a great unkempt beast

Bounding through billowing veils ofmist, The Poem tied like a kite to its tail

Crying in the teeth of the wind. * Mardi - Edna Manley, wife of Norman Washington Manley

WAYNE BROWN

Vol.13, No.4. Dec. 1967

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