Song by Adrienne Rich
Song
Adrienne RichYou’re wondering if I’m lonely:
OK then, yes, I’m lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.You want to ask, am I lonely?
Well, of course, lonely
as a woman driving across country
day after day, leaving behind
mile after mile
little towns she might have stopped
and lived and died in, lonelyIf I’m lonely
it must be the loneliness
of waking first, of breathing
dawns’ first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house wrapped in sleepIf I’m lonely
it’s with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in the last red light of the year
that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with a gift for burning
MARGINALIA
Here, another song for the lonely.
ABOUT ADRIENNE RICH
Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore on May 16, 1929. After having three sons, Rich gradually changed both her life and her poetry. The content of her work became increasingly confrontational, exploring such themes as women’s roles in society, racism, and the Vietnam War. It was in 1973, in the midst of the feminist and Civil Rights movements, the Vietnam War, and her own personal distress, that Rich wrote Diving into the Wreck, a collection of exploratory and often angry poems, which… (more)
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ENDNOTES
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