The Panther

His tired gaze, from passing endless bars,
has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.
To him there seem to be a thousand bars,
and out beyond these bars exists no world.
But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,
the pupils of his eyes dilate as images
of past encounters enter while through his limbs
a tension strains his silence
only to cease to be, to die within his heart.

This is a poem by German poet Rilke. It's few verses depict the sad life of a wildcat captured in the jungle and reduced to the confinement of a zoo. I read this in a book recently where this guy was explaining how he felt like that panther, trapped in a cage of his own design. It was hard to see the bars, especially when he built them himself. Then he was experiencing the impulse of life and knew he couldn't let it die within his heart. He left the cage, his former life, not knowing what was out there, but not willing to give up.