Point in Time (Adrienne Rich)

If she's writing a letter on a sheet of mica
to be left on the shelf of the cave
with the century's other letters each
stained with its own DNA expressed
in love's naked dark or the dawn
of a day of stone:
it's a fact like a town cross-haired on a map
But we are not keeping archives here
where all can be blown away
nor raking the graves in Pere-Lachaise
nor is she beholden or dutiful
as her pen pushes its final stroke
into the mineral page
molecule speaking to molecule
for just this moment

This is the point in time when
she must re-condense her purpose
like ink, like rain, like winter light
like foolishness and hatred
like the blood her hand first knew
as a wet patch on the staircase wall
she was feeling her way down in the dark.

(Source: http://www.aprweb.org/issues/current/rich.html)