Thursday, September 18, 2008


Thanks for the present, Janaka.
He must want me to write more poems about lava.

1 comment:

Matthew said...

from Twenty-One Love Poems by Adrienne Rich

XI

Every peak is a crater. This is the law of volcanoes,
making them eternally and visibly female.
No height without depth, without a burning core,
though our straw soles shred on the hardened lava.
I want to travel with you to every sacred mountain
smoking within like the sibyl stooped over her tripod,
I want to reach for your hand as we scale the path,
to feel you arteries glowing in my clasp,
never failing to note the small, jewel-like flower
unfamiliar to us, nameless till we rename her,
that clings to the slowly altering rock-
that detail outside ourselves that brings us to ourselves,
was here before us, knew we would come, and sees beyond us.