#Muriel Rukeyser

[trashmuth]

Muriel Rukeyser, Then  x  The Bear

[thoughtkick]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[strokeofserenity]

Muriel Rukeyser, The Collected Poems; "Christmas Eve"

[lisareadsthings]

[perfectquote]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[firstfullmoon]

Muriel Rukeyser, “Waking This Morning”

[stay-close]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[mournfulroses]

Muriel Rukeyser, from Gods & Mortals: Modern Poems on Classics; "The Poem as a Mask,"

[perfectfeelings]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[quotefeeling]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[nightlyquotes]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[resqectable]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[thoughtkick]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[insilverrolled]

Effort at Speech Between Two People

By Muriel Rukeyser [x]

:  Speak to me.          Take my hand.            What are you now?   I will tell you all.          I will conceal nothing. When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair    : a pink rabbit    :    it was my birthday, and a candle burnt a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.

:  Oh, grow to know me.        I am not happy.        I will be open: Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music, like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me. There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.

:  Speak to me.        Take my hand.        What are you now? When I was nine, I was fruitily sentimental, fluid    :    and my widowed aunt played Chopin, and I bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept. I want now to be close to you.        I would link the minutes of my days close, somehow, to your days.

:  I am not happy.          I will be open. I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems. There has been fear in my life.          Sometimes I speculate On what a tragedy his life was, really.

:  Take my hand.          Fist my mind in your hand.          What are you now? When I was fourteen, I had dreams of suicide, and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, hoping toward death   : if the light had not melted clouds and plains to beauty, if light had not transformed that day, I would have leapt. I am unhappy.          I am lonely.          Speak to me.

:  I will be open.          I think he never loved me: He loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls: he said with a gay mouth: I love you.          Grow to know me.

:  What are you now?          If we could touch one another, if these our separate entities could come to grips, clenched like a Chinese puzzle . . . yesterday I stood in a crowded street that was live with people, and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone. Everyone silent, moving. . . . Take my hand.          Speak to me.

[perfeqt]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

[perfectquote]

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser