The panther

Yesterday I got caged by my own stupididy in allowing myself to get out of sorts, confused and overtired when a simple message would have fixed a lot. Then ended up in me getting really confused and upset that I had upset others by the situation I had caused when again a simple message would have fixed it.


How it was handled afterwards was wonderful, wereas some people, who will remain nameless, I think would have taken advantage of the situation to both humiliate me with caustic jibes and games played on my emotions to their advantage instead I was surrounded by love and forgiveness and acceptance.

It seems strange sometimes that in now being more "restricted" that I was before and in a situation I was worried about, and terrified to take the step into, in it I am now freer and more loved than ever before.

This poem I know is loved by someone who was effected by the events last night, and I think them for the way they have freed me in a way that this panther is not :

The Panther by Rainer Maria Rilke

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.