Adrienne Rich, “A Mark of Resistance” …
Adrienne Rich
“A Mark of Resistance”
Stone by stone I pile
this cairn of my intention
with the noon’s weight on my back,
exposed and vulnerable
across the slanting fields
which I love but cannot save
from floods that are to come;
can only fasten down
with this work of my hands,
these painfully assembled
stones, in the shape of nothing
that has ever existed before.
A pile of stones: an assertion
that this piece of country matters
for large and simple reasons.
A mark of resistance, a sign.
[Photo: Campbell Falls, October 2015,
near the Massachusetts / Connecticut state line.]
***
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