Book Read Free

Collected Poems

Page 74

by Adrienne Rich


  In the marina an allegro creaking, 977

  In the Midwest of Willa Cather, 531

  In the never, still arriving, I find you, 236

  In the North, 144

  In the old, scratched, cheap wood of the typing stand, 685

  in the old city incendiaries abound, 867

  In the room in the house, 764

  In the sleepless sleep of dawn, in the dreamless dream, 637

  In the Wake of Home, 615

  In the Woods, 169

  In this long room, upon each western pane, 91

  In Those Years, 755

  In those years, people will say, we lost track, 755

  In Time of Carnival, 94

  I recall, 131

  I sat down facing the steep place where, 888

  Is it in hopes, 133

  Is there a doctor in the house, 1020

  Itinerary (The guidebooks play deception; oceans are), 25

  Itinerary (Burnt by lightningnevertheless), 1103

  It is asleep in my body, 416

  —it is to have these dreams, 869

  I trust none of them. Only my existence, 395

  I try to conjure the kind of joy, 623

  It’s happened already while we were still, 775

  It should be the most desired sight of all, 1001

  It’s June and summer’s height, 684

  It’s not new, this condition, just for a while, 1083

  It’s so pure in the cemetery, 194

  It’s true, these last few years I’ve lived, 649

  It was amusing on that antique grass, 57

  It wasn’t as if our lives depended on it—, 1110

  It was your vision of the pilot, 472

  it will not be simple, it will not be long, 749

  I’ve redone you by daylight, 747

  I’ve said: I wouldn’t ever, 142

  I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming, 465

  I was looking for a way out of a lifetime’s consolations, 348

  I was telling you a story about love, 784

  I was there, Axel, 1073

  I write you this out of another province, 66

  Jerusalem, 241

  Juvenilia, 126

  Key, The, 251

  Knight, The, 111

  Knocked down in the canefield, 329

  Knot, The, 196

  Knowing themselves too well in one another, 118

  Kursaal at Interlaken, The, 6

  Lag, The, 151

  Landscape of the Star, 64

  Language as city: : Wittgenstein, 334

  Lashes of white light, 153

  Last night I met you in my sister’s house, 327

  Last night we sat with the stereopticon, 130

  Last night you wrote on the wall: Revolution is poetry, 282

  Last Song, 103

  Late at night I went walking through your difficult wood, 310

  Late Ghazal, 781

  Lately in my dreams I hear long sentences, 648

  Late night on the underside a spectral glare, 874

  Late Style, 999

  Late summers, early autumns, you can see something that binds, 715

  Leaflets, 269

  Leafshade stirring on lichened bark, 525

  leaping forward escaping, 1024

  Let me take you by the hair, 124

  Letter from the Land of Sinners, 66

  Letters Censored Shredded Returned to Sender or Judged Unfit to Send, 1011

  Letters in the Family, 674

  Letters: March 1969, 317

  Letters to a Young Poet, 819

  Liberté, 1109

  Lichen-green lines of shingle pulsate and waver, 1090

  Life and Letters, 35

  Light at a window. Someone up, 419

  Light pulses through underground chambers, 194

  Like divers, we ourselves must make the jump, 28

  Likeness, 151

  Like This Together, 174

  Lioness, The, 460

  Liquid mist burning off, 322

  Listen! It’s never sung like that! Listen!, 209

  Little as I knew you I know you: little as you knew me you, 791

  Living in Sin, 71

  Living in the Cave, 390

  Living in the earth-deposits of our history, 443

  Living Memory, 694

  Living under fire in the raincolored opal of your love, 799

  Livresque, 926

  Lodged in the difficult hotel, 760

  Long After Stevens, 994

  Long ago I found a seed, 96

  Long Conversation, A, 837

  Looking as I’ve looked before, straight down the heart, 368

  Looking back trying to decipher, 599

  Look: this is January the worst onslaught, 641

  Loser, The, 112

  Love for twenty-six years, you can’t stop, 943

  Love in the Museum, 89

  Love Poem, 663

  Lovers Are Like Children, 98

  Lucifer in the Train, 56

  Luigi Pirandello, 130

  Lurid, garish, gash, 1048

  Marghanita, 732

  Mariner unpracticed, 29

  Marriage in the ’Sixties, A, 137

  Marriage Portion, The, 95

  Mathilde in Normandy, 20

  Maybe you spoke to someone, 235

  means there is something to hold, 438

  Medical textbooks propped in a dusty window, 627

  Meditations for a Savage Child, 401

  Melancholy Piano (extracts), 985

  Memorabilia, 131

  Memorize This, 943

  Memory, 320

  Memory lifts her smoky mirror: 1943, 736

  Memory says: Want to do right? Don’t count on me, 741

  Merced, 385

  Merely the landscape of a vanished whim, 50

  Merely to Know, 123

  Messages, 866

  Metallic slam on a moonless night, 960

  Middle-Aged, The, 94

  Midnight, the Same Day, 1005

  Midnight Salvage, 807

  Miracle Ice Cream, 757

  Miracle’s truck comes down the little avenue, 757

  Mirror, The, 133

  Mirror in Which Two Are Seen As One, The, 364

  Missing the Point, 235

  Mockingbird shouts Escape! Escape!, 1025

  Modotti, 815

  Mother-in-Law, 544

  Mother-Right, 497

  Moth Hour, 201

  Mourning Picture, 188

  Moving in Winter, 161

  Mudseason dusk schoolmaster: pressed out of rain my spine, 868

  Mulish, unregenerate, 144

  Mute it utters ravage guernican, 1086

  My body opens over San Francisco like the day-, 449

  My Brother, 208

  My brother, nobody knows, 208

  My dear Mother and Sister, 567

  My father, who since his death, 211

  My mouth hovers across your breasts, 642

  My neighbor, a scientist and art-collector, telephones me in a state, 303

  My neighbor moving, 981

  My swirling wants. Your frozen lips, 338

  My three sisters are sitting, 259

  Natalya Gorbanevskaya, 246

  Natural Resources, 498

  Necessities of Life, 167

  Negotiations, 664

  Never to be lonely like that—, 202

  New Year Morning, 93

  New York, 628

  Night, 43

  Nightbreak, 265

  Night in the Kitchen, 247

  Night-life. Letters, journals, bourbon, 446

  Night over the great and the little worlds, 646

  Night-Pieces: For a Child, 182

  Nights and Days, 484

  Nights like this: on the cold apple-bough, 758

  Night Watch, 243

  Nine months we conspired, 417

  1948: Jews, 746

  1941, 818

  1999, 87
6

  Nineteen-thirties Midwestern, 944

  Ninth Symphony of Beethoven Understood at Last as a Sexual Message, The, 391

  No bad dreams. Night, the bed, the faint clockface, 937

  Noctilucent Clouds, 874

  No flag heavy or full enough to hide this face, 854

  Noon, 194

  No one knows yet, 263

  No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone, 474

  Nora’s Gaze, 863

  No room for nostalgia here. What would it look like?, 563

  North American Time, 594

  Nostalgia is only amnesia turned around, 564

  Not having worn, 872

  Nothing he had done before, 864

  No: this, my love, is neither you nor I, 13

  Not Like That, 194

  Not Somewhere Else, But Here, 479

  Not spent those bloodshot friendships those, 1006

  not talk, 903

  Not that it is done well, but, 120

  Not to get up and go back to the drafting table, 953

  Not what you thought: just a turn-off, 759

  Novel, The, 665

  Novella, 149

  November 1968, 299

  Now, again, every year for years: the life-and-death talk, 245

  Now, not a tear begun, 128

  Now let’s away from prison—, 187

  Now that your hopes are shamed, you stand, 16

  Now we remember all: the wild pear-tree, 48

  Now will you stand for me, in this cool light, 89

  Nursing your nerves, 135

  Obscurity has its tale to tell, 202

  Observer, The, 264

  Octobrish, 869

  of polished tables lit with medalled, 1002

  Of simple choice they are the villagers; their clothes come with, 341

  Old backswitching road bent toward the ocean’s light, 792

  Old oblivion-book, that I lay open, 210

  Old words: trust fidelity, 535

  Olivia, 34

  On a clear night in Live Oak you can see, 686

  On a notepad on a table, 825

  On a screen as wide as this, I grope for the titles, 313

  One: comrade, 791

  One day of equinoctial light after another, 308

  On Edges, 262

  One Life, 692

  One night on Monterey Bay the death-freeze of the century, 724

  One year, you gave us, 145

  Only to have a grief, 147

  On the road there is a house, 765

  On the terrace, violins played, 250

  On this earth, in this life, as I read your story, you’re lonely, 722

  Open-Air Museum, 178

  Open the book of tales you knew by heart, 694

  “Organized knowledge in story and picture,” 110

  Orient Wheat, 49

  Origins and History of Consciousness, 446

  Orion, 231

  Orion plunges like a drunken hunter, 557

  Our Family, 211

  Our fathers in their books and speech, 49

  Our Kind of Terror: A Love Poem, 610

  Our mother went away and our father was the king, 424

  Our story isn’t a file of photographs, 684

  Our Whole Life, 324

  Our whole life a translation, 324

  Our words misunderstand us, 176

  Out in this desert we are testing bombs, 355

  Out there. The mind of the river, 300

  Over him, over you, a great roof is rising, 200

  Over the chessboard now, 136

  Over the half-finished houses, 154

  Over the hills in Shutesbury, Leverett, 552

  Overthrow. And make new, 1008

  Packed in my skin from head to toe, 995

  Pain made her conservative, 312

  Pain taught her the language, 1073

  Painter’s House, The, 944

  Parting, The, 181

  Parting: II, The, 225

  Passing On, 122

  Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff, 481

  Peace, 153

  Peeling Onions, 147

  “People suffer highly in poverty and it takes dignity and intelligence, 304

  Perennial Answer, The, 79

  Perfection now is tended and observed, 58

  Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev, 443

  Phenomenology of Anger, The, 377

  Photograph of the Unmade Bed, The, 332

  Picking the wax to crumbs in the iron lip of the candelabrum, 343

  Picnic, 253

  Pictures by Vuillard, 48

  Piece by piece I seem, 167

  Pieces, 320

  Pierrot Le Fou, 312

  Planetarium, 301

  Platform, The, 102

  Plaza Street and Flatbush, 825

  Plugged-in to her body, 322

  Poetry: I, 624

  Poetry: II, Chicago, 625

  Poetry: III, 626

  Point in Time, 933

  Postcard, 289

  Powdered milk, chocolate bars, canned fruit, tea, 773

  Power, 443

  Powers of Recuperation, 1095

  Primary Ground, A, 387

  Prisoners, The, 43

  Propped on elbow in stony light, 999

  Prospect, The, 60

  Prospective Immigrants Please Note, 150

  Purely Local, 8

  Quarto, 1088

  Rachel, 758

  Rafts, The, 274

  Rain of Blood, The, 22

  Rain on the West Side Highway, 474

  Raise it up there and it will, 747

  Rape, 391

  Rauschenberg’s Bed, 887

  Raven, The, 122

  Readings of History, 130

  Reading the Iliad (As If) for the First Time, 1048

  Reading the Parable of the Cave, 390

  Recorders in Italy, 57

  Re-forming the Crystal, 414

  Regardless, 860

  Relevance, 321

  Reliquary, 8

  Remind me how we walked, 486

  Rereading The Dead Lecturer, 1008

  Return of the Evening Grosbeaks, The, 27

  Revelation, 323

  Reversion, 766

  Revivalist in Boston, A, 26

  Revolution in Permanence (1953, 1993), 768

  Rhyme, 997

  Riding the black express from heaven to hell, 56

  Rift, 561

  Ritual Acts, 930

  Roadway, The, 47

  Rodin’s Orpheus, floodlit, hacked, 289

  Roofwalker, The, 154

  Roots, 223

  Rural Reflections, 111

  Rusted Legacy, 836

  Rustication, 141

  Sabbath evening privacy at home, 209

  Saw you walking barefoot, 1054

  Say a master of the track, 99

  Scene One: Ales, Sardinia, 19—, 1106

  Scenes of Negotiation, 1059

  School Among the Ruins, The, 900

  Scrape a toxic field with a broken hoe, 1112

  Screen Door, 960

  Second Sight, 870

  Sending Love, 777

  Sending love is harmless, 778

  Sending love: Molly sends it, 777

  September 21, 115

  Seven Skins, 828

  Sex, as they harshly call it, 180

  Shattered Head, 816

  She, 731

  She had thought the studio would keep itself, 71

  She is carrying my madness and I dread her, 643

  She is the one you call sister, 364

  She sits with one hand poised against her head, the, 370

  She tunes her guitar for Landstuhl, 976

  She who died on that bed sees it her way, 744

  She who has power to call her man, 20

  Shooting Script, 339

  Shoring up the ocean. A railroad track, 412

  Should blue air in its purity let you disdain, 1022

  Should I simplify my life
for you?, 794

  Showering after ’flu; stripping the bed, 743

  Sibling Mysteries, 486

  Side by Side, 197

  Signatures, 862

  Since we’re not young, weeks have to do time, 466

  Sisters, 143

  Six: edgelit, 799

  Six months back, 319

  Six Narratives, 782

  Sixteen years. The narrow, rough-gullied backroads, 573

  6/21, 684

  Skeleton Key, 977

  Skin of wet leaves on asphalt, 193

  Slashes, 946

  Sleep, horns of a snail, 214

  Sleep horns of a snail, 669

  Sleeping, turning in turn like planets, 471

  Sleepwalking, 214

  Sleepwalking Next to Death, 669

  Slides, The, 687

  Slowly, Prometheus, 152

  Smudged eyeballs, 177

  Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, 117

  Snow, 327

  Snow Queen, The, 87

  Soledad. = f. Solitude, loneliness, homesickness; lonely retreat, 722

  Solfeggietto, 659

  So many minds in search of bodies, 283

  Someday if someday comes we will agree, 664

  Some nights I think you want too much. From me. I didn’t ask, 1095

  Someone at a table under a brown metal lamp, 624

  Someone said to me: It’s just that we don’t, 653

  Some rooftop, water-tank looming, street-racket strangely quelled, 719

  Something broken Something, 265

  Something spreading underground won’t speak to us, 851

  Sometimes I’m back in that city, 937

  Song, 369

  Song of the Foolish Bees, The, 207

  Sources, 571

  Space mildews at our touch, 201

  Spirit like water, 124

  Splittings, 449

  Springboard, The, 28

  Spring nights you pillow your head on a sack, 1003

  Spring Thunder, 198

  Stand Up, 326

  Stand up in my nightgown at the window, 326

  Statue, 211

  Steam from a melting glacier, 1071

  Stelae, The, 327

  Stepping Backward, 23

  Still, a sweetness hardly earned, 192

  Still learning the word, 951

  Stories of three islands, 948

  Storm Warnings, 3

  Story, A, 666

  Stranger, The (Fond credos, plaster ecstasies!), 184

  Stranger, The (Looking as I’ve looked before, straight down the heart), 368

  Strangers are an endangered species, 554

  Strayed Village, The, 77

  Streets closed, emptied by force Guns at corners, 740

  Stripped, 299

  Study of History, 300

  Summer in the Country, 245

  Summer was another country, where the birds, 100

  Sunday Evening, 32

  Sunday in Inwood Park, 253

 

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