I can't find the copy she handed out at the reading in College Park, late '80s.

I had it, in its handwriting, on my wall for a long time.  Have had mixed feelings about it; have been all over the place with it.  But it's grown richer, and fragments of it often come back to me, most especially the words/notion/image of those birds.




"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