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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• Love Sonnet X poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Love Sonnet LX poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Love Sonnet LVIII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Girl-Gladness poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Fortune poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Elegy On An Australian Schoolboy poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Books poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Sonnet Of Motherhood XLV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems | Poetry Monster by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Love Sonnet XXV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems | Poetry Monster by Zora Bernice May Cross
• Love Sonnet LIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems | Poetry Monster by Zora Bernice May Cross
• You’re The Only One poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• Victims poem – Yaseen Anwer poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• The Senses of Art poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• The Details Are poem – Zhivka Baltadzhieva poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• The 9th Inning poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• Songs of Depression poem – Yang Wan-Li poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• Someone left a pen… poem – Yuyutsu Sharma poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• Some Singers And Their Traits poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• Sin poem – Yao Ying poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File
• Sabbath, My Love poem – Yehudah ha-Levi poems | Poetry Monster by Anglo File

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