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 

• Youth And Age by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Young Man’s Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Words by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Wisdom by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad? by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Who Goes With Fergus? by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• When Helen Lived by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• What Was Lost by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• What Then? by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Veronica’s Napkin by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Vacillation by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Upon A Dying Lady by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Under The Round Tower by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Under Saturn by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Two Years Later by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Two Songs Of A Fool by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Two Songs From A Play by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Towards Break Of Day by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats

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Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

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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