by A. R. Ammons
the sweetest crescent
of filtertips,
peppermint-striped straws
sprinkled here and there,
15and dances
a foamplastic chip:
what a relief: something
new to wade in and think about.
1974 (1986)
A Priori
The mountain great
and chipmunk small
play being seen:
the first wins all:
5when they play hide
the chipmunk shines:
the game defines
the winning side.
(1986)
Reticulum of Indirection
The thing
about hope
is there
is never
5any need
for any
if there
is any
and probably
10no need
to bother
with any
if there
isn’t any.
(1986)
Inclinations
In the time that
was before
us we were to be but in
the time
5to follow where will
our zero touch down:
the infinity
of the incoming, then,
ending in finitude,
10our days and ways,
was not
infinite, but into the
emptiness arising
infinity can get lost,
15infinity itself,
so that infinity feels
different, a losing not
a finding place:
becoming out
20of an infinitely arising
is not the same as
going away
with an infinite going away:
that is of course if
25time so far away doesn’t
build itself into
a curve and swing around
(how large a nothingness
we float the small
30feather of possibility on)
but why if it swings
around should it swing
around into us and if it
does will it swing
35around into all of us,
will we all be here
as before,
brother to brother, mother
to child,
40father, son:
I daresay that would be
quite a coincidence
and yet a hope so general
coincidence takes on
45the simplism and
certainty of a sign:
_________
swinging around, in that
it builds coming back into
going away, is tantamount to
50questioning infinity,
going out going out no
farther than it goes out:
but there are infinitely
turning infinities,
55circles, figure-8’s,
möbiuses:
if we came back, though, &
found the details all the
same, would we be pleased,
60would we just live our life
again and never know we had
known everyone and done
everything before
or would we
65have the sneaking suspicion
that this reminded us of
something
nearly forgotten:
what would be the use of
70doing it
exactly the same again:
and why do it
if it is to be different
but, as for agony, the same:
75if soul or soulspace is
neither created nor
destroyed (and surely somewhere
is a where
creation and destruction
80hardly, if at all, alter)
then we have a
different ball game:
we’ll go on:
but not particularly as
85ourselves: the essential
will go on, the essential
us, perhaps, but, perhaps,
so essential
that when it picks up more
90trappings
the design of the clothes
will be unlike, even offend,
us:
perhaps life does not relate
95to its two big bluffy
timeless zones: maybe, life is
just for its seconds: one
second you’re here on your
surfboard or deathbed, or
100flying through
space toward the gorge-rock,
and the next second you’re
not here
and there is absolutely no
105durance before nor after you
are here:
that seems much more manageable:
it cuts away so much and
sharpens relevancies:
110no use to dwell around befoggy
about your possible birth
or to linger on afterwards
making definite
arrangements for a comeback:
115perhaps, though, there are
really no instants, maybe
they are illusory or they are
nearsighted misreadings:
maybe they are the edgy
120subwork of a mere integral
calculus we can’t quite swoop
with:
supposing there is somewhere
in the local universe
125something like a hurdle or
crest, like a marker for the
high jump, and, say, everything
time and all stuff, breaks out
over that crest
130and we seem to be here merely
as we turn through this
active, unmarked scope:
possible, of course, the
crest itself could be
135wavelike in motion, progressive
about various phases of the
universe and offering its
uplift to whatever is around
and ready:
140is one, in other words,
swept through by larger
continuities in
the brevities of one’s hours:
we are probably not in a
145rapids: if the universe is
the flux, what would
be the rocks:
but motionwise our immediate
universe could be like a
150drop of water flicked up by
the bursting rapids
to fall back into tumultuous
ongoing:
the rise and fall could
155nevertheless show the design
of a singular (and departing)
action, an excepting
distinction seeks, an
individuation exclusion prompts:
160motions like meanings are
subsumed and further subsumed:
the arc of our frailty
dismantles but
other motions boil and swirl
165us into other meanings:
why are we so worried, as if
we were in charge:
are we to rely on the
possibilities we can imagine:
170we think we know everything
because we think we know
everything we know:
but there may be spacious
layouts we have no housings to
175put in yet:
you can put classicism inside
romanticism but you can’t
put romanticism inside classicism:
we circle the holy, stand liths
180(phallic cymbals) intervalled
appropriately about shined
through with kinds of seasonal
ma
thematics with protectorate
grooves and ledges further
185outstanding, each marcato
inwardly announcing intensification
till the holy roar at
the priestly center enchants
solicits the skies, brings
190down the rain or
stirs the wind, beseechings
pain trues like the lean
a tree makes of the total
winds: we get it right: we
195screw and dream, we husband
and rear, we win and hold,
we beg forgiveness, we enact
accuracy as supplication, we
school precision till the polestar
200sits in our beam, we rise
too risen at times, we misjudge
the low: all we want is what
we want, touch, strength,
we want lith and plinth,
205penetralia, release:
(the same place disturbs and eases)
we beg forgiveness because what
is there to beg for when you
have everything except
210forgiveness for having it
the universe, empty as
it is, might from far enough
away look as solid as a man:
our incarnation is blurry:
215the fingertips end, plus or
minus, in a fog, flakes and
shedding shale, millions of
organisms scrambling for
space or hiding, furrows
220like glacial lake-lines:
more vaguely yet, we’re breath
and broken wind, feces,
moisture from mouths, eyes,
ears, skin, scalings of teeth,
225epithelial sheddings, eargum,
eye cracklings, snot,
germ-lively perspiration, all
our byproducts, the incomings
and outgoings wither and
230spall our containing walls,
my father said
folks used to
bean up overnight
and gather the next
235morning at the
farting pole:
each contestant
grabbed
hold of the pole,
240cocked a leg, left or
right, and split
a tune, criteria
running from pitch
to volume to length
245of announcement,
slidings from
keen whines to
baritone bellows
how long the world’s been here
250while the myths like river
systems or ocean currents or
weather lows and highs migrate
turning into and out of
figurations having turning in common:
255if, though (though, though,
though) your current instants
contain each a cry, each cry
boxed, enflamed and wound out
with screeching ribbons, knots gripping
260centers or sheets checkered
with disjunction, abrupt,
pointed, opposite changes—
why, then, oblivion may become
paradise, expectation may not
265involve streets and clothes,
wagons and weddings, jobs and
accruements but expectation
may wear the look searching
nothingness, a paradise golden
270by rusty earth, the only
way to lift the tumor out to
let it no longer weigh:
this time of year I stop every
day by the forsythia, its gold
275daily different from
green to bronze to white gold
and I stand still and say to
myself, now, check this out:
but the still pictures I take
280erode from
the mind and wash away
whereas the things I move
around without paying any
attention to build up distally
285into present-fresh permanences:
odd how one thing holds to
another’s motion:
so they put all your boxes of
instants into the box and
290lower you away to a
resting ground—this you will
not feel, no stuffy nose, no
crinklings, parts through the
hair, no lip drifts, or eye
295cross rolls: gravity will
pull, bottoms will collect
fluids while the tops become paper
thin and musty crisp: but
you will not need to object,
300everything will use mannerly
in the scheme of natural things:
still, you’ll be a
long time getting free of
that much, that secure a
305bondage, trying to keep the
old once again preventing you
from the liberal mixes and
flows of being altogether free
of the physical holding at
310last:
why not consider cremation
and whiff away suddenly:
except for the grieving ones
confronting the spiritual blank
315with no place to turn for you:
let them have a stone (a
phallic cymbal) noded with a
granite-ring peak: let them
have a mound, the mournful
320displacement of the underground:
give them weeds to pick and a
place to set the flowers
(someone may steal to another
grave, no matter, try
325artificials): was the person
never a body, then, what we
loved was an inhabitant not
really confined in soil or
lost in smoke but the unimaginable
330quantity now returned a
resource to its sources or
those distal frames a few so
clear buried in our brains,
living in our body again, this
335time ours: what was alive in
other flesh lives on in us,
the son carries the father,
the other loss filling the son’s
mind as grief: we are all
340one person: if the universe
could be seen far off it might
be a man getting his tapes
out to play his girl: the eye
breaks down before our
345insolidities: we roll universes
within us when we rock:
I do admire discursion’s air,
the facts stripped flat,
informational, no more alignment
350practiced between them than
practice requires, no honeyed
energy surfeit anywhere, no
glow in excess of limitations,
leftover mizzlement: and
355no theory working through,
embranching and leafing till
every cell works to the good
of a trunk, till every bit of
sky is brought into subservience,
360the fully yielded image, at
once its general and specific,
the flame-work locked in,
the prison of consistency,
the tyranny of insistence:
365oh, no, I do admire the
slightness of reason that
tunnels through a turbulence
with only so much way as to
make its way: surprise, then,
370enriching possibility,
swerve and swell befall, the
worm’s interest in the tree,
boring:
explaining’s inexhaustible
375(nothing having yet been
explained) but explaining in
every t
ime wears a different
cast which is explaining
enough, the tone, the air,
380the slant, the character:
then, too: the definitional
can keep you going while a
focus brought on by totality
of apprehension leaves you
385struck, nodding off: but
inexhaustibility inexhaustibly
enough comes on with concrete
ridges, streaks of peaks,
real ravines edgy with brush
390and sharp here and there where
washes or falls scour wear
away:
discursion allows
speaking at large as small
395speaking: dwell here or there on a
twig-end, what’s lost, tomorrow’s
twig can be different, a variety
spaced on the other side of the scope:
whereas
400large speaking that just
rises up into mist over the midst
has no underbottom precision works:
where,
for example, can the
405sidewinder sidewind or the rattler
rattle, or the stream stream
if not in the actual
and yet, to tell the truth,
I’m not sure it isn’t the
410propositional that survives:
Emerson makes spare rhymed (ribbed?)
or unrhymed metrical contrivances
that say something interesting,
whereas
415some people’s quartz contentment
or masted Mannahatta, forget
such dark impasses:
(art turns on itself and ends
inexhaustibly in
420turning endlessness)
1985 (1987)
Why Is It Always the Way It Always Is
Things are so temporary, change so imminent, there’s no use
to get angry: if your kid washes a month of mud from under
the fenders and it slickens your driveway and your boots with
every drizzle, don’t get upset: first thing you know, your child will be
5elsewhere not a child, as if wild weather had twisted through, leaving
you no precious world: and the mud could (slightly) build
up your flower borders or introduce a color variation into the blooms:
who knows where fender mud comes from, a vacation trip, a lovers’