stone

I noticed a dead bird in the hospital garden. It had hit the glass window, and lay broken, stiff, among crushed stone. There it was, near small locust trees, rocks, benches, water.

All tableaux, stone, stone, stone, water, wood, bird, still, opaque.

I thought of the Islamic angels of the Second Elegy - beautiful, disinterested.

Every angel is terrible. And yet, alas,

I welcome you, almost fatal birds of the soul, 

knowing about you.......

Who are you?

Rilke, trans. C.F. MacIntyre