From seeing the bars, his seeing is so exhausted
that it no longer holds anything anymore.
To him the world is bars, a hundred thousand
bars, and behind the bars, nothing.
The lithe swinging of that rhythmical easy stride
which circles down to the tiniest hub
is like a dance of energy around a point
in which a great will stands stunned and numb.
Only at times the curtains of the pupil rise
without a sound . . . then a shape enters,
slips though the tightened silence of the shoulders,
reaches the heart, and dies.
Rainer Maria Rilke
(translation by Robert Bly)
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One of the reasons I love Rilke...
This picture reminds me of the graffiti artist Banksy's painting of a tiger escaping its cage. A link: http://flickr.com/photos/34427470616@N01/3419165. Interesting image!