Rich's poem is an extended meditation on the way moonlight reveals a landscape. The problem of the poem has to do with the word "amends"—what amends need to be made, and who needs to make them?

The poem is made up of a series of delicate images of objects illuminated by the moonlight. The moonlight is personified as a kind of force whose light brings these things into being; it "picks" at small stones, or "lays its cheek" on the sand. In another sense, however, the poet's vision is the controlling intelligence of the poem. There is a cinematic quality to the progression of things the moonlight sees, as if the poem was a kind of movie camera tracking across the landscape.

This progression of the camera/eye of the poet moving with the moonlight across the landscape reveals another kind of progression, from the natural to the manmade; the imagery moves from the surf to the tracks to the "gash" of the quarry, ending finally on the "eyelids of the sleepers" in their trailer, the adjective "tremulous" suggesting perhaps the movement of their closed eyes, as if they are dreaming.

The animating power of the moonlight "dwells" on these sleepers "as if to make amends"—a phrase that is extremely ambiguous. What does the moonlight need to make amends for, if not for making visible things that ordinarily would be left in the dark? And even this is conditional: it is "as if" the light is making amends. In other words, one might think the light was making amends, but that might not be the case.

It's possible that the moonlight's apparent gentleness is not gentle at all. It "flicks," "pours," "leans" and "soaks," these verbs suggesting a kind of unstoppable power. Perhaps it is the "sleepers" who need to make amends, or the poet, who, in presenting this vision, is asking for (or demanding?) a kind of forgiveness.

Can you explain "Amends" by Adrienne Rich?

“Amends” by Adrienne Rich is a poem that juxtaposes the natural with the industrial/human. When reading a poem, it's helpful to examine what is literally happening within the text and what is happening figuratively. In the literal sense, a tree is blooming (“a white star, then another / exploding out of the bark”), people are sleeping in their homes (“eyelids of sleeper”), and the moonlight is moving over everything (“it soaks through cracks into trailers”). Figuratively, the ocean lays “its cheek for moments on the sand” and “licks the broken ledge” of the cliff.

This excellent poem concerns the link between moonlight and humans. We are persented with moonlight personified in various ways, some of them quite sensuous, as it lights up various aspects of the landscape and finally "dwells upon the eyelids of sleepers." Note how moonlight is personfied as it "licks the broken ledge" and "laying its cheek for moments on the sand." The moonlight is presented as unyielding and able to penetrate and reach everywhere. Note how the poem describes it as "unavailing" and it has the ability to "soak" through cracks. Moonlight is personified as a graceful and empathising female figure that seems to bring healing or relaxation to humans for the sufferings and harships they experience during day time. Moonlight wants to "make amends," and as we follow its journeying over the landscape to its ultimate destination of the humans that it finds, we are struck with the idea of the moon being personified as some form of benevolent goddess who wants to make up at night for the harships of the day.