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

Poem, in those years, by Adrienne Rich