Audio: Rosanne Cash Reads “Power” by Adrienne Rich

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POWER

by Adrienne Rich

Living    in the earth-deposits    of our history

Today a backhoe divulged    out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle    amber    perfect    a hundred-year-old
cure for fever    or melancholy    a tonic
for living on this earth    in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered    from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years    by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin    of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold    a test-tube or a pencil

She died    a famous woman    denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds    came    from the same source as her power

The audio recording is a production of BrainPickings edited by Maria Popova.

Poem and performance are reproduced in Vox Populi for educational purposes only.

Email subscribers may click on the title of this post to listen to the audio.

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Rosanne Cash