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 Disquieting Muses by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Dispossessed by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Detective by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Death Of Myth-Making by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Dead by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Couriers by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Courage Of Shutting-Up by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Companionable Ills by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Colossus by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Burnt-Out Spa by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Bull Of Bendylaw by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Beggars by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Beekeeper’s Daughter by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Bee Meeting by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Beast by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Babysitters by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Arrival Of The Bee Box by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Applicant by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Temper Of Time by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Tale Of A Tub by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath

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