a sybil

.

Long before our time they called her old,

But she'd walk down the same road every day.

Her age became too much to say

In years — and, like a forest's, would be told 

In centuries. She comes to stand at dusk — 

Her spot each time the same — and to foretell.

She is a hollow, wrinkled husk,

Dark as a fire-gutted citadel. 

She has to turn her flock of talking loose

Or it will grow too crowded to relieve.

Flapping and screaming, words are flying all 

Around her. Then, returning home to roost,

They find a perch beneath her eyebrows' eaves,

And in that shadow wait for night to fall.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

art by picasso