Living in the earth-deposits of our history <br /> <br />Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth <br />one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old <br />cure for fever or melancholy a tonic <br />for living on this earth in the winters of this climate. <br /> <br />Today I was reading about Marie Curie: <br />she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness <br />her body bombarded for years by the element <br />she had purified <br />It seems she denied to the end <br />the source of the cataracts on her eyes <br />the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends <br />till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil <br /> <br />She died a famous woman denying <br />her wounds <br />denying <br />her wounds came from the same source as her power.<br /><br />Adrienne Rich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/power/
