What Kind of Times are These
What times indeed. When I started reading this poem, I was hoping that Rich would offer us some words of wisdom or advice on how to cope with or respond to the times we’re living in. How to know which way to go as we stand at this crossroads in the forest. She stops short of that—challenging us all to listen. For what? For guidance from the trees? From others? Or from the still small voice inside each of us that knows which direction we should take?
What Kind of Times are These
by Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)
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.
From the collection, Collected Poems: 1950-2012 (W. W. Norton & Company, 2016).
