monday poem #159: Audre Lorde, "Bridge through My Windows"
I've read some of Lorde's nonfiction, but very little of her poetry.
Bridge through My Windows
In curve scooped out and necklaced with light
Burst pearls stream down my outstretched arms to earth
Oh bridge my sister bless me before I sleep
Wild air is lengthening
And I am tried beyond strength of bearing
Over water.
We are each of us both shorelines
A left country where time suffices
And the right land
Where pearls roll into earth and spring up day.
Joined our bodies have passage into one
Without a merging
As this slim necklace anchored into night.
And while the we conspires to make secret its two eyes
We search each other's shore for some crossing home.
- Audre Lorde
from The First Cities
reprinted in Collected Poems
Bridge through My Windows
In curve scooped out and necklaced with light
Burst pearls stream down my outstretched arms to earth
Oh bridge my sister bless me before I sleep
Wild air is lengthening
And I am tried beyond strength of bearing
Over water.
We are each of us both shorelines
A left country where time suffices
And the right land
Where pearls roll into earth and spring up day.
Joined our bodies have passage into one
Without a merging
As this slim necklace anchored into night.
And while the we conspires to make secret its two eyes
We search each other's shore for some crossing home.
- Audre Lorde
from The First Cities
reprinted in Collected Poems