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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Poems in English 

• The Leaders Of The Crowd by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lamentation Of The Old Pensioner by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lady’s Third Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lady’s Second Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lady’s First Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Indian Upon God by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Indian To His Love by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Hour Before Dawn by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• To A Child Dancing In The Wind by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Three Songs To The One Burden by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• These Are The Clouds by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Withering Of The Boughs by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Wheel by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Wanderings of Oisin: Book II by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Wanderings of Oisin: Book I by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Travail Of Passion by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Three Monuments by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Three Beggars by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Statues by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats

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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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