In Those Years
In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to
But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I
— Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012)
3 Comments on In Those Years (remembering Adrienne Rich), last added: 3/30/2012
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I've re-shared this poem...one of my favorites...thanks for posting it...let it spread around social media's universe
I wrote my senior thesis in college on Adrienne Rich and am deeply saddened by her passing. Her poems will remain, always, totemic in my mind. xox
thanks for posting this, Beth.
I also wrote a paper on her my sophomore year of college. She was important to a lot of young women.