Anenome

Unknown

Anenome

In the meadow the anemone

is creaking open to the dawn.

By noon, the sky’s polyphony

will flood her white lap till she drowns.

The tiny muscle in her star

is tensed to open to the All,

yet the daylight’s blast so deafens her

she barely heeds the sunset’s call

or finds the willpower to refurl

her petal-edges – her, the power

and will of how many other worlds.

In our violence, we outlive her.

But which new life will see us flower

and face the skies, as true receivers?

Rilke

“The sky’s polyphony.” I had to look that up to make sure I had it right. Polyphony = ‘the style of simultaneously combining a number of parts, each forming an individual melody and harmonizing with each other”. So does that make the anenome like an open ear? Is she listening to the music of the spheres? Rilke calls her a star, so that makes her an earth-star receiving messages from a sky-star. And though delicate, she takes everything in, something we “in our violence” don’t do though we outlive her. The thing that speaks to me most is the question whether we also can flower and become “true receivers.” It's against our nature to receive. We want to act, accomplish, conquer – hence our “violence”. But the anenome shows us that a life of beauty, though breathtakingly short and fragile, is in fully opening ourselves, listening, and receiving. Can we do it? Rilke doesn’t know.