Posts tagged Adrienne Rich
Posts tagged Adrienne Rich
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early…
in the nineteenth year and the eleventh month
speak your tattered Kaddish for all suicides:Praise to life though it crumbled in like a tunnel
on ones we knew and lovedPraise to life though its windows blew shut
on the breathing-room of ones we knew and lovedPraise to life though ones we knew and loved
loved it badly, too well, and not enoughPraise to life though it tightened like a knot
on the hearts of ones we thought we knew loved usPraise to life giving room and reason
to ones we knew and loved who felt unpraisable.Praise to them, how they loved it, when they could.
Whatever happens with us, your body
will haunt mine - tender, delicate
your lovemaking, like the half-curled frond
of the fiddlehead fern in forests
just washed by sun. Your traveled, generous thighs
between which my whole face has come and come -
the innocence and wisdom of the place my tongue has found there -
the live, insatiate dance of your nipples in my mouth -
your touch on me, firm, protective, searching
me out, your strong tongue and slender fingers
reaching where I had been waiting years for you
in my rose-wet cave - whatever happens, this is.
