These are the essences.

Archaic Torso of Apollo
by R. M. Rilke ~ translated by H. Landman

We never knew his fantastic head,
where eyes like apples ripened. Yet
his torso, like a lamp, still glows
with his gaze which, although turned down low,

lingers and shines. Else the prow of his breast
couldn't dazzle you, nor in the slight twist
of his loins could a smile run free
through that center which held fertility.

Else this stone would stand defaced and squat
under the shoulders' diaphanous dive
and not glisten like a predator's coat;

and not from every edge explode
like starlight: for there's not one spot
that doesn't see you. You must change your life.

From a distance I can remember a part of my life when I understood, or when I thought I knew what understanding was... I remember a part of my life when I took everything with zeal and passion... I stole it and I tore into it, as a lion finding antelope during a drought when every body of prey has shrunk away or passed into whatever it is animals go through when they die. I used to grasp onto new ideas like they were the only substance to the blood pumping through my body, but the truth is, I don't remember what I might have learned from Rilke's Archaic Torso of Apollo, or many other widely known, "well-written" and "full" poems or essays.
I don't know...
...And lately I feel as if it might not even be complacency that causes me to be okay with that.
I am simply content with finding myself in less "intellectuel" things: like love and kindness.
These are the essences.

Krista

I find a brilliant humour in my use of lame analogies and starting sentences with the word, "And".
I think I continue to do it because my elementary teachers told me that is was wrong. Ridiculous.