Talking About Trees
Dearest friends, I’ve got a fundraising campaign going for the next month–CBAW is trying to match a foundation grant. If you can help us out, or know someone who can, please consider passing the information along. Here’s a link to the campaign. With the help of the community, we can bring art, music, improv, and poetry workshops to more than 400 service members and veterans this summer.
Our poem is this great one by the poet Adrienne Rich, who I love the most.
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.
I’ve ben thinking a lot about those last lines: “because in times like these/to have you listen at all, it’s necessary/to talk about trees.” There’s so much outrage and tragedy and despair coming at us at all times. And it’s hard to even listen to 20% of it because it all feels so hopeless. This week, take the simple instruction of starting a poem off with trees. A tree you saw recently (can’t think of one? go outside, take a little walk, pay attention to a tree or a pair of trees), described in detail, then step away from the tree to yourself, standing there, witnessing it. Then step a little further back to the place you’re observing it from and describe that too. See what happens.
