A R Ammons

Easter Morning

I have a life that did not become, That turned aside and stopped, Astonished: I hold it in me like a pregnancy or As on my lap a child Not to grow old but

Crowride

When the crow Lands, the Tip of the sprung spruce Bough weighs So low, the System so friction-free, The bobbing lasts Way past any Interest in the subject.

When I Was Young the Silk

When I was young the silk Of my mind Hard as a peony head Unfurled And wind bloomed the parachute: The air-head tugged me Up, Tore my roots loose and drove High, so high

In Memoriam Mae Noblitt

This is just a place: We go around, distanced, Yearly in a star’s Atmosphere, turning Daily into and out of Direct light and Slanting through the Quadrant seasons: deep Space begins at our Heels,

Still

I said I will find what is lowly And put the roots of my identity Down there: Each day I’ll wake up And find the lowly nearby, A handy focus and reminder, A ready

Rapids

Fall’s leaves are redder than Spring’s flowers, have no pollen, And also sometimes fly, as the wind Schools them out or down in shoals Or droves: though I Have not been here long, I

Called Into Play

Fall fell: so that’s it for the leaf poetry: Some flurries have whitened the edges of roads And lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: & Turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I

An Improvisation For Angular Momentum

Walking is like Imagination, a Single step Dissolves the circle Into motion; the eye here And there rests On a leaf, Gap, or ledge, Everything flowing Except where Sight touches seen: Stop, though, and

Design

The drop seeps whole From boulder-lichen Or ledge moss and drops, Joining, to trickle, Run, fall, dash, Sprawl in held deeps, To rush shallows, spill Thin through heights, But then, edging, To eddy aside,

Rogue Elephant

The reason to be autonomous is to stand there, A cleared instrument, ready to act, to search The moral realm and actual conditions for what Needs to be done and to do it: fine,

Rivulose

You think the ridge hills flowing, breaking With ups and downs will, though, Building constancy into the black foreground For each sunset, hold on to you, if dreams Wander, give reality recurrence enough to

Identity

1) An individual spider web Identifies a species: An order of instinct prevails through all accidents of circumstance, though possibility is High along the peripheries of Spider webs: you can go all around the

Mule Song

Silver will lie where she lies Sun-out, whatever turning the world does, Longeared in her ashen, earless, Floating world: Indifferent to sores and greengage colic, Where oats need not Come to, Bleached by crystals

So I Said I Am Ezra

So I said I am Ezra And the wind whipped my throat Gaming for the sounds of my voice I listened to the wind Go over my head and up into the night Turning

After Yesterday

After yesterday Afternoon’s blue Clouds and white rain The mockingbird In the backyard Untied the drops from Leaves and twigs With a long singing.

Gravelly Run

I don’t know somehow it seems sufficient To see and hear whatever coming and going is, Losing the self to the victory of stones and trees, Of bending sandpit lakes, crescent Round groves of

Recovery

All afternoon The tree shadows, accelerating, Lengthened Till Sunset Shot them black into infinity: Next morning Darkness Returned from the other Infinity and the Shadows caught ground And through the morning, slowing, Hardened into

Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity

You’ll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are: Gosling shit (which J. Williams said something Was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout Shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet

The City Limits

When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold Itself but pours its abundance without selection into every Nook and cranny not overhung or hidden; when you consider That birds’ bones make no

Hymn

I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth And go on out over the sea marshes and the brant in bays And over the hills of tall hickory And

Eyesight

It was May before my Attention came To spring and My word I said To the southern slopes I’ve Missed it, it Came and went before I got right to see: Don’t worry, said

Poetics

I look for the way Things will turn Out spiralling from a center, The shape Things will take to come forth in So that the birch tree white Touched black at branches Will stand