Audio: Rosanne Cash Reads “Power” by Adrienne Rich
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POWER
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.
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Rosanne Cash
Sent from my Samsung device
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One of my favorite poems….
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