Adrienne Rich - For a Friend in Travail lyrics

Waking from violence: the surgeon’s probe
Left in the foot
Paralyzing the body from the waist down
Dark before dawn: wrapped in a shawl
To walk the house
The Drinking-Gourd slung in the northwest
Half-slice of moon to the south
Through dark panes a time to speak to you

What are you going through? she said
Is the great question
Philosopher of oppression, theorist
Of the victories of force

We write from the marrow of our
Bones what she did not
Ask, or tell: how victims
Save their own lives

That crawl along the ledge
Then the traveling span of fibre strung
From one side to the other
I’ve dreamed that too
Waking, not sure we made
It relief, appallment, of waking
Consciousness o, no to sleep again
O to sleep without dreaming

How day breaks, when it breaks
How clear and light the moon
Melting into moon-colored air
Moist and sweet, here on the western edge
Love for the world, and we are part of it
How the poppies break from
Their sealed envelopes she did not tell

What are you going through
There on the other edge?