What Kind of Times Are These // Adrienne Rich (R.I.P.)

[iatrogenicmyth.livejournal.com]

Hearing her read this is truly amazing, the emphasis placed on certain words and phrases ... It resonates.

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.

Comments

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.

Thank you, Adrienne Rich.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

and she was so right. More poets should be political!

[lyryk.livejournal.com]

So beautiful. I love the last stanza, especially. Thanks for sharing.

[wearwoolf.livejournal.com]

The last one is especially moving. So so beautiful!

[lyryk.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I love how the word 'disappear' is in the last line of each of the previous stanzas, and you expect it again at the end but then she just knocks you over with those final lines.

[wearwoolf.livejournal.com]

BOOM.

[kaishin108.livejournal.com]

So very moving, who she was, her writing and her voice that carried the words...