Transitions

Adrienne Rich died yesterday in Santa Cruz. She succumbed to rheumatoid arthritis, a condition I had no idea was lethal. My initial contact with Adrienne was by postcard. Typed. Circa 1981. She said she had been reading my works for many years. I had submitted some poems to 'Sinister Wisdom' and she was the editor. I kept the postcard because I was an unabashed admirer of her; her prose, but more so of her poetry. Years later when she moved to Cali, I had the good fortune of 4-5 encounters, all of them warm and each of them memorable. Adrienne was brilliantly prolific; and wrote about the human condition rooted in responsibility, and empowerment; of children and parents, sexuality and loves, simplicity and the complex...of herself, and beyond her self. Many will say her greatest poems were the '21 Love Poems' written between 1974-1976. My favorite poem is one entitled: ' Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev.' Shatayev was the leader of a women's climbing team all of whom died on Lenin Peak, 1974. I have read this poem many times over the years. It is like visiting an old friend. It never ever fails to move me. And it always makes me think of what is possible. Here are the last 2 verses of 'Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev'... 1974.

'In the diary as the wind began to tear
at the tents over us I wrote:
We know now we have always been in danger
down in our separateness
and now up here together but till now
we had not touched our strength

In the diary torn from my fingers I had written:
What does love mean
what does it mean 'to survive'
A cable of blue fire ropes our bodies
together burning in the snow We will not live
to settle for less We have dreamed of this
all of our lives.

Adrienne Rich 1929-2012