the one awake/ in a house wrapped in sleep

[grissecon]

Just managed to track down one of my favorite poems. I first read this when I was in fifth grade and it really struck a chord. Mostly because I've always been a bit of a loner and around that time my friends were all becoming increasingly social (and casting about for boyfriends.)

I knew it was by Adrienne Rich but I could not remember the title at all, so I'm really happy to have found it. Putting it here for safe-keeping.


Song
By: Adrienne Rich


You're wondering if I'm lonely:
OK then, yes, I'm lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.

You want to ask, am I lonely?
Well, of course, lonely
as a woman driving across country
day after day, leaving behind
mile after mile
little towns she might have stopped
and lived and died in, lonely

If I'm lonely
it must be the loneliness
of waking first, of breathing
dawns' first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house wrapped in sleep

If I'm lonely
it's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in the last red light of the year
that knows what it is, that knows it's neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with a gift for burning