Power

Living in the earth-depositis 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 

~Adrienne Rich


Painting by Elisabeth Slettnes