POEMS FOR ADRIENNE RICH (IV)

POEMS FOR ADRIENNE RICH (IV)

POEMS FOR ADRIENNE RICH (IV)

Sometimes you spit chips
of fire and ice into your poems.
At other times tendresse blesses them
like a visiting angel.
But the anger is not devilish
just very harsh, exacerbatedly human.
I find myself wanting to meet you
in your work. I read you over
and over until the poems become
like another voice in my mind,
never my own. Yours is too honest
to ever resemble my inner monologues.
Yours is a dialogue with death and life,
the latter uppermost. You will cling,
limpet lady, to your loves and
detestations until your always
ascending rocket of self burns out.
I doubt I will live to see it. I don’t
want to. I want to witness your
continuing dispensation among the poets,
the magic of the age.