The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1
Page 5
to pay
my last respects to earth
farewell earth
5ocean farewell
lean eucalyptus with nude gray skin
farewell
Hill rain
pouring from a rockpierced cloud
10hill rain from the wounds of mist
farewell
See the mountainpeaks gather
clouds from the sky
shake new bright flakes from the mist
15farewell
Hedgerows hung with web and dew
that disappear at a touch
like snail eyes
farewell
20To a bird only this
farewell
and he hopped away to peck dew
from a ground web
spider running out of her tunnel to see
25to whom I said
farewell
and she sat still on her heavy webs
I closed up all the natural throats of earth
and cut my ties with every natural heart
30and saying farewell
stepped out into the great open
1951
I Went Out to the Sun
I went out to the sun
where it burned over a desert willow
and getting under the shade of the willow
I said
5It’s very hot in this country
The sun said nothing so I said
The moon has been talking about you
and he said
Well what is it this time
10She says it’s her own light
He threw his flames out so far
they almost scorched the top of the willow
Well I said of course I don’t know
The sun went on and the willow was glad
15I found an arroyo and dug for water
which I got muddy and then clear
so I drank a lot
and washed the salt from my eyes
and taking off my shirt
20hung it on the willow to dry and said
This land where whirlwinds
walking at noon in tall columns of dust
take stately turns about the desert
is a very dry land
25So I went to sleep under the willow tree
When the moon came up it was cold
and reaching to the willow for my shirt
I said to the moon
You make it a pretty night
30so she smiled
A night-lizard rattled stems behind me
and the moon said
I see over the mountain
the sun is angry
35Not able to see him I called and said
Why are you angry with the moon
since all at last must be lost
to the great vacuity
1951 (1954)
At Dawn in 1098
At dawn in 1098
the Turks went out from the gates
of Antioch
and gathered their dead
5from the banks of the river
the cool ones
they gathered in
Bathing in the morning river
I said Oh
10to the reapers
and stepping out gave
my white form to morning
She blushed openly
so twisting I danced
15along the banks of the river
and morning rushed up over the hills
to see my wild form
whirling on the banks of the river
Saying O morning
20I went away to the hills
With cloaks
and ornaments
arrows and coins of gold
the Turks buried their dead
25and sealed the tombs with tears
But the Christians rising from the fields
broke open the cool tombs
and cut off heads
for a tally
30Taking morning in my arms
I said Oh
and descended the eastern hills
and all that day
it was night in Antioch
1951
The Whaleboat Struck
The whaleboat struck
and we came ashore
to the painted faces
O primitives I said
5and the arrow sang to my throat
Leaving myself on the shore
I went away
and when a heavy wind caught me I said
My body lies south
10given over to vultures and flies
and wrung my hands
so the wind went on
Another day a wind came saying
Bones
15lovely and white
lie on the southern sand
the ocean has washed bright
I said
O bones in the sun
20and went south
The flies were gone
The vultures no longer searched
the ends of my hingeless bones
for a trace of lean or gristle
25Breathing the clean air
I picked up a rib
to draw figures in the sand
till there is no roar in the ocean
no green in the sea
30till the northwind flings no waves
across the open sea
I running in and out with the waves
I singing old Devonshire airs
1951 (1954)
Turning a Moment to Say So Long
Turning a moment to say so long
to the spoken
and seen
I stepped into
5the implicit pausing sometimes
on the way to listen to unsaid things
At a boundary of mind
Oh I said brushing up
against the unseen
10and whirling on my heel
said
I have overheard too much
Peeling off my being I plunged into
the well
15The fingers of the water splashed
to grasp me up
but finding only
a few shafts
of light
20too quick to grasp
became hysterical
jumped up and down
and wept copiously
So I said I’m sorry dear well but
25went on deeper
finding patched innertubes beer cans
and black roothairs along the way
but went on deeper
till darkness snuffed the shafts of light
30against the well’s side
night kissing
the last bubbles from my lips
1951
Turning
Turning from the waterhole I said Oh
to the lioness whose wrinkled forehead
showed signs of wonder
O beautiful relaxed animal I said
5The tall grass shivered up and down
and said
What a looseness is in her body how
limp are the wet teats of her belly
The grass sang a song I had never
10heard before to the red sun
so I said cool evening with a wind
in the rushes
The lioness dropped loosely to the ground
and I said O tired lioness
15you love the evening
She came to my chest and we fell into
the waterhole
to which
since the grass had stopped singing and
20was watching the sun sink
I said
water is like love in tranquillity
my soul has wings of light and
never have I seen
25more beauty
than is in this evening
Her paw touched my lips as if
she loved me passionate and loud
so I said
&nb
sp; 30Loose lioness
and her lips took the words from my throat
her warm tongue flicking the living flutter
of my being
So I fumbled about in the darkness for my wings
35and the grass looked all around at the evening
1951
Dying in a Mirthful Place
Dying in a mirthful place
I looked around at the dim lights
the hips and laughing throats
and the motions of the dance
5and the wine the lovely wine
and turning to death said
I thought you knew propriety
Death was embarrassed and stuttered
so I watched the lips
10and hurried away to a hill in Arizona
where in the soil was such a noiseless
mirth and death
that I lay down and placed my head
by a great boulder
15The next morning I was dead
excepting a few peripheral cells
and the buzzards
waiting for a savoring age to come
sat over me in mournful conversations
20that sounded excellent to my eternal ear
1952
When Rahman Rides
When Rahman rides a dead haste in a dusty wind
I wait for him and look for him coming over the desert
blustering through the tough unwaving leaves
and trembling behind a tall saguaro say
5O Rahman
and he says
what what
It’s like this
what what
10so when I saw you coming I thought perhaps
There was the rush of dust and then farther on
a spiral whirlwinding
as if he had stopped too late and drawing up his wings
looked back at the saguaro’s lifted arms
15Unspiralling
he swept on across the desert
leaving me the ocotillo in a bloomless month
1952
With Ropes of Hemp
With ropes of hemp
I lashed my body to the great oak
saying odes for the fiber of the oakbark
and the oakwood saying supplications
5to the root mesh
deep and reticular in the full earth
through the night saying these
and early into the wild unusual dawn
chanting hysterical though quiet
10watching the ropes ravel
and the body go raw
while eternity
greater than the ravelings of a rope
waited with me patient in my experiment
15Oh I said listening to the raucous
words of the nightclouds
how shadowy is the soul
how fleet with the wildness of wings
Under the grip of my bonds
20I say Oh and melt beyond the ruthless coil
but return again saying odes in the night
where I stand splintered to the oak
gathering the dissentient ghosts of my spirit
into the oakheart
25I in the night standing saying oaksongs
entertaining my soul to me
1952
My Dice Are Crystal
My dice are crystal inlaid with gold
and possess
spatial symmetry
about their centers and
5mechanical symmetry and
are of uniform density
and all surfaces have equal
coefficients of friction for
my dice are not loaded
10Thy will be done
whether dog or Aphrodite
Cleaning off a place on the ground
I patted it
flat and
15sat back on my legs
rattling the bones
Apparitionally god sat poker-faced
silent on the other side
When the ballooning
20silence burst I cast
and coming to rest
the dice spoke their hard directive
and melting
left gold bits on the soil
Having Been Interstellar
Having been interstellar
and in the treble clef
by great expense of
climbing mountains
5lighting crucible fires
in the catacombs
among the hunted
and the trapped in tiers
seeking the distillate
10answering direct
the draft of earthless air
he turned in himself
helplessly as in sleep
and went out into the growth of rains
15and when the rains
taking him
had gone away in spring
no one knew
that he had ever flown
20he was no less
no more known
to stones he left a stone
Coming to Sumer
Coming to Sumer and the tamarisks on the river
I Ezra with unsettling love
rifled the mud and wattle huts
for recent mournings
5with gold leaves
and lapis lazuli beads
in the neat braids loosening from the skull
Looking through the wattles to the sun
I said
10It has rained some here in this place
unless snow falls heavily in the hills
to do this
The floor was smooth with silt
and river weeds hanging gray
15on the bent reeds spoke saying
Everything is even here as you can see
Firing the huts
I abandoned the unprofitable poor
unequal even in the bone
20to disrespect
and casual with certainty
watched an eagle wing as I went
to king and priest
I Assume the World Is Curious About Me
I assume the world is curious about me
the sound
and volume of hell
where brittle grace polished as glass
5glazed in fire glints
and pliant humility
furls coiling into itself
like an ashen abnegation
for sin
10you will want to see it
even without god is a hot consumption
I assume that when I die
going over and under without care
leaves will wilt and lose all windy interest
15some ration of stars will fall
for my memorial
A simple thrust brings vomit
but a reduction
and retained separation has love in it
20and love burns on itself
while hate
is a cold expulsion and devastation
I assume many will crowd around me
to praise my unwillingness to simplify
25then turning
assist in raising me to my outstanding tree
someday unhang my sinews from the nails
let down the gray locust from the pine
I Struck a Diminished Seventh
I struck a diminished seventh
and sat down
to wait
for the universal word
5Come word
I said
azalea word
gel precipitate
while I
10the primitive spindle
binding the poles of earth and air
give you
with river ease
a superior appreciation
15equalling winged belief
It had almost come
I perishing for deity stood up
drying my feet
when the minor challenge was ignored
20and de
ath came over sieving me
Gilgamesh Was Very Lascivious
Gilgamesh was very lascivious
and took the virgins as they ripened
from the men that wanted them
To the men Gilgamesh gave wall building
5brick burning and gleaning of straw
for a physical expression
yielding more protection
for the virgins the men wanted
than long hours in jogging beds
10with the walls crumbling before
who knew what predators
seeking wine
virgins
long fields of wheat
15and spearshafts wrapped in gold
Because he sought the mate
of his physical divinity
Gilgamesh
let many usurp the missing one
20and went
singly in his tragic excellence
At his going by
the men in mud and sweat
saw virgins yielding to his eyes
25and turned to work with dreams
no virgin would ever give to them
Climbing the wall
and walking up and down upon it
I said
30Fools fools
but they kneaded slowly
the muscles of their glassy backs
worms working in the sun
When I Set Fire to the Reed Patch
When I set fire to the reed patch
that autumn evening
the wind whipped volleys of shot
from the bursting joints
5and armies bristling defensive interest
rushed up over the fringing hills
and stared into the fire
I laughed my self to death
and they
10legs afire
eyelashes singed
swept in flooding up the lovely
expressions of popping light
and hissing thorns of flame
15Clashing midfire