Two Songs

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

1.

Sex, as they harshly call it,

I fell into this morning

at ten o’clock, a drizzling hour

of traffic and wet newspapers.

I thought of him who yesterday

clearly didn’t

turn me to a hot field

ready for plowing,

and longing for that young man

pierced me to the roots

bathing every vein, etc.

All day he appears to me

touchingly desirable,

a prize one could wreck one’s peace for.

I’d call it love if love

didn’t take so many years

but lust too is a jewel

a sweet flower and what

pure happiness to know

all our high-toned questions

breed in a lively animal.

2.

That “old last act”!

And yet sometimes

all seems post coitum triste

and I a mere bystander.

Somebody else is going off,

getting shot to the moon.

Or a moon-race!

Split seconds after

my opposite number lands

I make it–

we lie fainting together

at a crater-edge

heavy as mercury in our moonsuits

till he speaks–

in a different language

yet one I’ve picked up

through cultural exchanges…

we murmur the first moonwords:

Spasibo. Thanks. O.K.

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Poems in English 

• Hail, Zaragoza! If With Unwet eye by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Hail, Twilight, Sovereign Of One Peaceful Hour by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Guilt And Sorrow, Or, Incidents Upon Salisbury Plain by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Great Men Have Been Among Us by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Goody Blake And Harry Gill by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Gipsies by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• George and Sarah Green by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• From The Italian Of Michael Angelo by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• From The Dark Chambers Of Dejection Freed by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• From The Cuckoo And The Nightingale by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Foresight by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Fidelity by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Feelings Of The Tyrolese by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Feelings Of A Noble Biscayan At One Of Those Funerals by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Feelings of A French Royalist, On The Disinterment Of The Remains Of The Duke D’Enghien by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Extract From The Conclusion Of A Poem Composed In Anticipation Of Leaving School by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Expostulation and Reply by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Even As A Dragon’s Eye That Feels The Stress by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Epitaphs Translated From Chiabrera by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

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