you must change your life

rilke wrote a poem about looking at a broken statue.
no head. no eyes. a torso in a museum, that’s all.

and he says: there is no part of it that does not see you.

then the last line arrives with no warning, no argument, nothing earned:
you must change your life.

it is the most violent line in poetry
and it is addressed to a man standing quietly in a museum
on an ordinary afternoon.

that’s how it actually happens.
not at the funeral. not at the hospital.
you are looking at something that cannot look back
and it tells you the truth about yourself
and you have to go home and do something about it.