"19th and Wylie", 3 1/4" x 4 1/2", oil pastel on 300# oil paper
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
(+ thank you Karen, Nicole and Elliott)
