For This

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

If I’ve reached for your lines (I have)

like letters from the dead that stir the nerves

dowsed you for a springhead

to water my thirst

dug into my compost skeletons and petals

you surely meant to catch the light:

-at work in my wormeaten wormwood-raftered

stateless underground

have I a plea?

If I’ve touched your finger

with a ravenous tongue

licked from your palm a rift of salt

if I’ve dreamt or thought you

a pack of blood fresh-drawn

hanging darkred from a hook

higher than my heart

(you who understand transfusion)

where else should I appeal?

A pilot light lies low

while the gas jets sleep

(a cat getting toed from stove

into nocturnal ice)

language uncommon and agile as truth

melts down the most intractable silence

A lighthouse keeper’s ethics:

you tend for all or none

for this you might set your furniture on fire

A this we have blundered over

as if the lamp could be shut off at will

rescue denied for some

and still a lighthouse be

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• Bantams In Pine-Woods by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Gray Room by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• A Postcard From The Volcano by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• A High-Toned Old Christian Woman by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• A Rabbit As King Of The Ghosts by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Domination Of Black by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Disillusionment Of Ten O’clock by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Anecdote Of The Jar by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Not Ideas About The Thing But The Thing Itself by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Metaphors Of A Magnifico by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Looking Across The Fields And Watching The Birds Fly by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Life Is Motion by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Le Monocle de Mon Oncle by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Infanta Marina by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Hymn From A Watermelon Pavilion by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Gubbinal by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
• Frogs Eat Butterflies, Snakes Eat Frogs, Hogs Eat Snakes, Men Eat Hogs by Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
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