This poem draws its title from a 1938 Bertolt Brecht poem called “To Those Born Later.” Brecht was writing just before the start of World War II, when Nazis and other Fascists threatened much of Europe: “What kind of times are these/When it’s almost a crime to talk about trees/ Because it means keeping still about so many evil deeds?” Adrienne Rich put this 1991 poem into a book, “Dark Fields of the Republic,” calling her readers to thought and action.

The poem begins by describing a site that likely saw action during the Revolutionary War. She mentions a meeting-house, evoking a reference to Quaker Meeting, a place that would have sheltered runaway slaves and Viet Nam war conscientious objectors. The place is now quiet and full of beauty. But the poem breaks away from descriptions of nature and metaphor to directly address a modern problem: someone who has seen this place “wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.”

We can only wonder and worry about what important spot is being threatened. Rich wants to create in us a state of anxiety and the desire to act. In the third stanza, the place remains elusive, “I won’t tell you where the place is.” Yet it is under threat to be destroyed, a risk that comes just as we hear beautiful, evocative imagery, “ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise.”

The final stanza breaks from natural imagery, turning back to the poet and her readers, asking, “why do I tell you anything?” Rich answers that a poem about trees -- ending on that very word – can sound a warning.

Read a biography of the poet Adrienne Rich at the Poetry Foundation Web site.

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