Picture/Poems: Download Page using the free InChorus Media Player, recorded by Cliff Crego

"Flowers are to the background green of meadow and forest what a poem is to the constant chatter of sounds which surrounds us. How strikingly beautiful they are, these centers where essences converge."

(1) Songs of Love and Loss: Departure Tree  (269 K*)

(2) On Paths: Six Little Poems  (160 K)

(3) Leaves: I (47 K)

(4) Fractal Mirrors: A Die Falls  (172 K)

(5) A Daisy of Dry Meadows  (120 K)

(6) The Little Clavier  (59 K)

(7) Passageway  (147 K)

(8) November Snow  (357 K)


(9) On the Wayside: Every Valley Has Two Sides  (206 K)

(10) First/Last (127 K)

(11) Barn Work  (201 K)

(12) Two Little Poems about Nothing  (187 K)


(13) On the Wayside: Literal Man  (171 K)

(14) Ridge Crossing  (525 K)

(15) Leaves: II (192 K)

(16) Two Little Poems about Everything (140 K)


(17) The Beech Tree and "The Eye of the Moor" (176 K)

(18) On the Wayside: The Dance of Chance (156 K)

(19) On the Wayside: A Gathering Place (117 K)

(20) An American Triptych: Hamadryad (293 K)


(21) An American Triptych: Roads without End (312 K)

(22) Songs of Love and Loss: North Face (390 K)

(23) The Farming Life: Sitting (137 K)

(24) As the River Runs: III (293K)


(25) The Farming Life: Knowing (156 K)

(26) On the Wayside: On the Wayside (98 K)

(27) On the Wayside: The Color Black (156 K)

(28) Fifteen 37-step Poems: Ridge Crossing (546 K)



(29) The Man at the Door Says No  (176 K)

(30) Of Birds and Trees (176 K)

(31) Double Quartet: Candlemas (176 K)

(32) The Broken Lance (293 K)


(33) Leaves: II (215 K)

(34) On Paths: Another Selection (273 K)

(35) On the Wayside: Wanderer (117 K)

(36) Walking the World: I (195 K)

* 100 K = 60 seconds or one minute of spoken sound

(1a) Click on the title you wish to listen to;

(1b) Depending on the type of computer you use
and the browser you prefer, ie. Netscape, Internet Explorer, AOL,
etc., a Download Manager will appear;

(1c) Create a new folder on your hard drive and call it something
like "RIlke Poems";

(1d) Click Save;

(1e) Then you'll see the little Transfer File box. Each file
has been made as small as possible—about 100 kilobytes—
to make downloading them relatively quick and easy;



(2a) Click on the inChorus link above to download a free
copy of their Player. Because it's a small application, the
Player both downloads quickly and is very easy to use.

(2b) Install the inChorus Player. On a Windows PC, you might
put it with applications on your C:\drive. On a Macintosh, place in
your Hard Disk folder and add to your Apple Menu for easy
on-line access.



(3a) Open the Player. Drop down the File menu, and select
Open Message. Select the new folder, "Rilke Poems," you just
created and then the particular file which has been downloaded, for
example, < download_lament.smg > After clicking on the file,
a handy little panel appears with a stopwatch and sliding bars for
both time and volume. For each poem you open, a separate player
appears. This is a nice feature, letting you click back and forth between
as many pieces as you like, or, for example, the original German and
the English translation, making for easy comparison.



(4a) Steps 1 through 3 you can do while still on-line. You can even
continue looking around the texts of the Rilke or Picture/Poem
websites (or elsewhere) with the Player still on.

(4b) In contrast to the popular RealAudio system, there is no real-time
streaming that takes place, which means that, the next time
you want to listen to a particular poem, you don't have
to log back on-line and repeat the whole procedure. With inChorus,
which is really intended as an e-mail messaging application, you have
a permanent copy of the recording once it's downloaded, so
you can listen to them in any order at your leisure, make new copies,
and, of course, even send them to friends as e-mail attachments.

Reading hours at a time narrows the mind to the stuffy confines of a room
without windows; Listening it seems, whether in or out-of-doors, is much more alive;
it allows the eyes to roam freely about, no longer straining in a small, constricted
field. Listening allows for great space. And a polyphony of simultaneous, comple-
mentary movements. Try it. Experiment. Take what you're reading and record it
in your own voice, or let a computer speak it for you. Then go outside to some
special, quiet place and listen. Watch how easily you can follow the flow of what
is being said and still observe the flowers, the birds, the wind in the trees, the
movements of clouds and weather. Watch how that, if you go on to write yourself,
with time, much more space will begin to enter in the rhythms of your prose. And
if you compose, you may soon discover for yourself the most basic of all movements
in music— the back and forth of sound and silence. Listening. It is perhaps
the most beautiful and primary of all arts.