Burning Oneself Out

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

We can look into the stove tonight

as into a mirror, yes,

the serrated log, the yellow-blue gaseous core

the crimson-flittered grey ash, yes.

I know inside my eyelids

and underneath my skin

Time takes hold of us like a draft

upward, drawing at the heats

in the belly, in the brain

You told me of setting your hand

into the print of a long-dead Indian

and for a moment, I knew that hand,

that print, that rock,

the sun producing powerful dreams

A word can do this

or, as tonight, the mirror of the fire

of my mind, burning as if it could go on

burning itself, burning down

feeding on everything

till there is nothing in life

that has not fed that fire

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Poems in English 

• The Song of the Women by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Sons by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Old Guard by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Little Hunter by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Dead by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Cities by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of Seven Cities by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Settler by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Servant When He Reigneth by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sergeant’s Weddin’ by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Secret of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Second Voyage by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sea-Wife by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sea And the Hills by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sacrifice of Er-Heb by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal’vin by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rowers by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rhyme of the Three Sealers by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rhyme of the Three Captains by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Return by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling

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Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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