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 

• Old Ladies’ Home by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Ode For Ted by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Notes To A Neophyte by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Nick And The Candlestick by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• New Year On Dartmoor by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Never Try To Trick Me With A Kiss by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Mussel Hunter At Rock Harbor by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Morning In The Hospital Solarium by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Moonsong At Morning by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Monologue At 3 AM by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Miss Drake Proceeds To Supper by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Metamorphoses Of The Moon by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Memoirs Of A Spinach-Picker by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Mary’s Song by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Man In Black by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Love Is A Parallax by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Letter To A Purist by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Letter In November by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• A Lesson In Vengeance by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath

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Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

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

 

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