Long before our time they called her old, <br />But she'd walk down the same road every day. <br />Her age became too much to say <br />In years — and, like a forest's, would be told <br /> <br />In centuries. She comes to stand at dusk — <br />Her spot each time the same — and to foretell. <br />She is a hollow, wrinkled husk, <br />Dark as a fire-gutted citadel. <br /> <br />She has to turn her flock of talking loose <br />Or it will grow too crowded to relieve. <br />Flapping and screaming, words are flying all <br /> <br />Around her. Then, returning home to roost, <br />They find a perch beneath her eyebrows' eaves, <br />And in that shadow wait for night to fall.<br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-sybil/
