The faithful drudging child...
the child at the oak desk whose penmanship,
hard work, style will win her prizes
becomes the woman with a mission, not to win prizes
but to change the laws of history.
How she gets this mission
is not clear, how the boundaries of perfection
explode, leaving her cheekbones grey with smoke
a piece of her hair singed off, her shirt
spattered with earth...Say that she grew up in a house
with talk of books, ideal societies--
she is gripped by a blue, a foreign air,
a desert absolute: dragged by the roots of her own will
into another scene of choices.
"Sources" by Adrienne Rich
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