1422: What Kind of Times Are These | Adrienne Rich
"What Kind of Times Are These"
Adrienne Rich
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light-
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
On this day in...
2011: "The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" by Mindy Nefitee
2010: "when you have forgotten Sunday: a love story" by Gwendolyn Brooks
2009: "Not So, Not So" by Anne Sexton
2008: Weekend, no poem
where the sea swings in like an iron gate/and we touch
Adrienne Rich
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light-
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
On this day in...
2011: "The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" by Mindy Nefitee
2010: "when you have forgotten Sunday: a love story" by Gwendolyn Brooks
2009: "Not So, Not So" by Anne Sexton
2008: Weekend, no poem
where the sea swings in like an iron gate/and we touch