With Roses in Raron

"Rose, oh contradiction pure, desire

to be nobody's sleep beneath so many lids."

(Inscription on the grave of Rilke.)

Here where the winds of midday

part, against the hill's prow blown,

a little twist of flowers I lay:

roses on the poet's stone.

Hillslopes blossom; young girls walking

sun-brown flesh and sun-drench bone.

By the barns stand farmers talking,

children together, children alone.

Poet brought a world aborning

from life's silent monotone.

Twixt today and the new morning

all drink of the wine he's grown.

Rose and heart, they both have broken

underneath the grave's headstone.

Heart and rose are both bespoken;

Death shall not as death be known.

Since the poet's mouth is deadened,

roses more and more have grown,

bloomed and nodded thanks and reddened

underneath this rose's stone.

Rose, of earth's and spirit's pairing,

pentagram-shrine Maria's own.

Mouth and wound and womb and flaring

earth's earth and light against light thrown.