The bones of saints are praised above their flesh,
That pale rejected garment of their lives
In which they walk despised, uncanonized.
Brooding upon the marble bones of time
Men read strange sanctity in lost events,
Hold requiem mass for murdered yesterdays,
And in the dust of actions once reviled
Find symbols traced, and freeze them into stone.
Other Adrienne Rich songs:
all Adrienne Rich songs all songs from 1951