Adrienne Rich - The Lioness lyrics

The scent of her beauty draws me to her place
The desert stretches, edge from edge
Rock silver grasses drinking-hole
The starry sky the lioness pauses
In her back-and-forth pacing of
Three yards square and looks at me her eyes
Are truthful they mirror rivers
Seacoasts, volcanoes, the warmth
Of moon bathed promontories
Under her haunches' golden hide
Flows an innate, half-abnegated power
Her walk is bounded three square yards
Encompass where she goes

In country like this I say
The problems is always
One of straying too far, not of staying
Within bounds there are caves
High rocks, you don't explore yet you know
They exist her proud, vulnerable head
Sniffs toward them it is her country, she
Knows they exist

I come towards her in the starlight
I look into her eyes
As one who loves can look
Entering the space behind her eyeballs
Leaving myself outside
So, at last, through her pupils

I see what she is seeing:
Between her and the river's flood
The volcano veiled in rainbow
A pen that measures three yards square
Lashed bars the cage
The penance