PoemTwenty-One Love Poems XXI
Author / PoetAdrienne Rich
TagsChoice, Identity, Light, Solitude

XXI

The dark lintels, the blue and foreign stones
of the great round rippled by stone implements
the midsummer night light rising form beneath
the horizon—when I said “a cleft of light”
I meant this. And this is not Stonehenge
simply nor any place but the mind
casting back to where her solitude,
shared, could be chosen without loneliness,
not easily nor without pains to stake out
the circle, the heavy shadows, the great light.
I choose to be a figure in that light,
half-blotted by darkness, something moving
across that space, the color of stone
greeting the moon, yet more than stone:
a woman. I choose to walk here. And to draw this circle.

Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
16 May 1929 - 27 Mar 2012
Region: North America
Period: Contemporary
Movement: Feminist, Postmodern
Awards: National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

more poems by Adrienne Rich

Poem NameTopic
Twenty-One Love Poems XXConversation, Love, Reflection
Twenty-One Love Poems XVIIIEstrangement, Love, Miracle
Twenty-One Love Poems XVIIAccident, Forces, Love
Twenty-One Love Poems XVIConnection, Distance, Intimacy
Twenty-One Love Poems XVBeach, Circumstances, Failure
Twenty-One Love Poems XIXConnection, Love, Reality
Stepping BackwardConnection, Goodbye, Identity
Snapshots of a Daughter-In-LawAngels, Experience, Memory
Rural ReflectionsExpression, Grass, Intent
Prospective Immigrants Please NoteChoice, Experience, Memory

all poems by Adrienne Rich

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