Safe at Home & Other Poetry

By John Steele

Featured in New Lyre Spring 2021

Safe at Home 

My life is not this steeply sloping hour, 
in which you see me hurrying.  
—Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. Robert Bly 

Home alone, far from the sloping hour, 
life is not as hectic as before. 
Solitude is neither sweet nor sour. 

As a bee bores down into a flower, 
I contemplate the adage: less is more. 
Home alone, far from the sloping hour, 

though not immune from sickness, death, or sorrow, 
I won’t let fear control me anymore. 
My solitude is neither sweet nor sour.