A Mark of Resistance by Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich’s “A Mark of Resistance” is a short but symbolic poem about quiet, enduring defiance against forces of destruction, oppression, or erasure . The poem presents the act of resistance as something both natural and necessary. It uses the image of a single flower blooming stubbornly in hostile conditions as a metaphor for the persistence of life, hope, and human 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. Adrienne Rich’...