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 

• At the Party by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Old People’s Home by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• O What Is That Sound by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• O Tell Me The Truth About Love by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Nocturne by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• A New Age by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Like A Vocation by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Let A Florid Music Praise by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Law, Like Love by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• At Last the Secret is Out by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Lady Weeping at the Crossroads by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• It’s No Use Raising A Shout by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• In the Time of War, XII by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• In Praise Of Limestone by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Here War Is Simple by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Give me a doctor by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• from The Cave of Making by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• from In Time of War by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Friday’s Child by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Friday’s Child by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)

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