Artifacts Poetry, Ray Hinman

Solitude's Counterfit

The roar of the freeway fades.
Here and there
a light among the rows of identical houses.
Here and there
patches of blue-gray light, framed by
a yellow window.
At this time of night I can't help thinking
how silly Rilke would look, standing on
a bridge in Farmer's Branch.


Or he would look sinister.
The ornate cityscapes, the ones he loved,
knew centuries of war and upheaval, for him
they created the deepest solitude.
Buddha of the book stalls (his features proclaimed),
an Orphan of art, brooding on park benches.
A dancer, though always serenely still.


Here bridges are built for speed,
the streets have no sidewalks, the creek
is only knee-deep.
Here the man who would truly go into himself
has no place to go.
And when it's really late, only the sky


is active, filled with lights
taking people off to buy bits of the cities
Rilke loved.