Adrienne Rich: What Kind of Times Are These

Photo by Molly

What Kind of Times Are These

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.

— Adrienne Rich