Improv, Week 7

Poem: “For the Record” by Adrienne Rich

The clouds and the stars didn't wage this war
the brooks gave no information
if the mountain spewed stones of fire into the river
it was not taking sides
the raindrop faintly swaying under the leaf
had no political opinions

and if here or there a house
filled with backed-up raw sewage
or poisoned those who lived there
with slow fumes, over years
the houses were not at war
nor did the tinned-up buildings

intend to refuse shelter
to homeless old women and roaming children
they had no policy to keep them roaming
or dying, no, the cities were not the problem
the bridges were non-partisan
the freeways burned, but not with hatred

Even the miles of barbed-wire
stretched around crouching temporary huts
designed to keep the unwanted
at a safe distance, out of sight
even the boards that had to absorb
year upon year, so many human sounds

so many depths of vomit, tears
slow-soaking blood
had not offered themselves for this
The trees didn't volunteer to be cut into boards
nor the thorns for tearing flesh
Look around at all of it

and ask whose signature
is stamped on the orders, traced
in the corner of the building plans
Ask where the illiterate, big-bellied
women were, the drunks and crazies,
the ones you fear most of all: ask where you were.

Revision:

Ask where you were when they built the wooden bridge
across the Chattanooga creek, built from the leavings
of old railroad tracks and the shed long abandoned
along the untouched acreage, just across the border
of Alabama in that liminal space of illiterate signatures.

What pine or oak originated from those pillars? Whose
saw slides through the chest of every ring? The homeless
old women who have no names sleep under the age marks,
remnants of what we might call the crows feet of the wood
cut in their prime. Atlanta bridges made of mortar and stone

never saw such a sight as these. The sunset across Appalachian
Mountains are not at war with the sunset of skyscrapers. Yet
we ask ourselves: Whose side are we really on when the inanimate
stage of city lights hide the stars so well, yet their reflection always
catches its gaze upon the breathe of the Chattanooga?