Undaunted, I write

Some Rilke readers see
his poetry about love
as his own flaws exposed,
his failure as a lover.

Some readers define his lover
as one of two supposed
people cut off from love
around them. In his poetry,

neither can thus know
what love is. Being in love,
as poet, with the process
of writing as Rilke was, art

was his ever saving part-
ner in the tedium of less
emotions. I have been in love,
hopelessly so.

In my heart, love
has been as beautiful as a meadow
of wild flowers of many colors,
reliably moving in a prevailing wind.