Adrienne Rich — Long After Stevens

A locomotive pushing through snow in the mountains more modern than the will to be modern The mountain’s profile in undefiled snow disdains definitions of poetry It was always indefinite, task and destruction the laser eye of the poet her blind eye her moment-stricken eye her unblinking eye She had to get down from the blocked train lick snow from bare cupped hands taste what had soared into that air -- local cinders, steam of the fast machine clear her palate with a breath distinguish through tumbling whiteness figures frozen figures advancing weapons at the ready for the new password She had to feel her tongue freeze and burn at once instrument searching, probing toward a foreign tongue