Adrienne Rich - Integrity lyrics

The quality or state of
Being complete unbroken condition entirety
- Webster

A wild patience has taken me this far

As if I had to bring to shore
A boat with a spasmodic outboard motor
Old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books
Tossed in the prow
Some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades
Splashing the oarlocks burning through
Your fore-arms can get scalded
Licked with pain
In a sun blotted like unspoken anger
Behind a casual mist

The length of daylight
This far north, in this
Forty-ninth year of my life is critical

The light is critical: of me, of this
Long-dreamed, involuntary landing
On the arm of an inland sea
The glitter of the shoal
Depleting into shadow
I recognize: the stand of pines
Violet-black really
Green in the old postcard
But really I have nothing but myself
To go by nothing
Stands in the realm of pure necessity
Except what my hands can hold
Nothing but myself? my selves
After so long, this answer
As if I had always known
I steer the boat in, simply
The motor dying on the pebbles
Cicadas taking up the hum
Dropped in the silence

Anger and tenderness: my selves
And now I can believe they breathe in me
As angels, not polarities
Anger and tenderness: the spider's genius
To spin and weave in the same action
From her own body, anywhere -
Even from a broken web

The cabin in the stand of pines
Is still for sale i know this know the print
Of the last foot, the hand that
Slammed and locked that door
Then stopped to wreathe
The rain-smashed clematis
Back on the trellis
For no one's sake except it's own
I know the chart nailed to the wallboards
The icy kettle squatting on the burner
The hands that hammered in those nails
Emptied that kettle one last time
Are these two hands
And they have caught the baby leaping
From between trembling legs
And they have worked the vacuum aspirator
And stroked the sweated temples
And steered the boat here through this hot
Misblotted sunlight, critical light
Imperceptibly scalding
The skin these hands will also salve