A Widening Circle

Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song? - Rilke

Finding freedom is an odd dance.
Look how the black squirrel hops along the lawn
or how the turkey vulture floats in the air
or how a dog pants after chasing its tail.
Is my freedom of a greater or lesser variety?
The very power to choose is a given
yet always in freedom there is the refusal
of a choice presented on life's plate.
I could circle around God and the towers of old
for thousands of years as if I inhabited a Rilke poem
but my days are numbered differently
and sometimes the circles in which I move
and have my very being narrow to a point.
I give myself to reaching out across the world
with a promise to return to where I began.
Rilke gave himself willingly to it all.
I still don't know.

(Thank you to Joanna Macy's translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Widening Circles.")