Rilke Rereading Hölderlin

Footnotes to the tower. For “He spends the summer

There, in a state of violent agitation,”

Read: “It’s there, in his agitation’s most violent

State that Hölderlin suspends the summer” —

Like a yellow pear above the untroubled water.

For the lost, disheveled decades of derangement,

Translate I was struck by Apollo as you

Must change your life. For sonnets that sing their own

Spontaneous, Orphic necessity to praise,

Think naked as a lightning rod he waited.

For necessity insert Anangke. But for

Anangke, “Lord, just one more summer, please.”

For summer, the lyre. Hölderlin in his tower.

Until autumn, when the leaves start falling. Whoever

Has nowhere to go will never get home now.