by A. R. Ammons
impenetrable? the devil
take it!
–or–
2945I cd think of it as
protected darkness,
boundaried by
ornament & light:
maybe that’s a deeper
2950response
than my fully exhausted
open tree:
everybody to his own taste,
said the old man as
2955he kissed the cow: (and
every little bit helps,
said the old lady as
she peed in the ocean)
10:29 a.m: the bead’s gone:
296011:40 a.m: fine, hurrying snow:
12:48 pm: everything white:
3:20 pm: still snowing: I
went to the
cleaner’s, egg-lady’s,
2965& mailbox & just got in:
trucks are whirling red
gravel over the roads:
the snow is holding,
packing down: tires aren’t
2970breaking through:
the children, let out of
school, run testing
mounds that look all
snow but are only surfaced,
2975scraping up handfuls—
not yet enough
snow for
huge
crunchy handfuls—
2980muffled, the highway’s
stopped burning:
9:41 pm: we’ve just come
in from being out:
it’s a wicked white
2985icy night:
cars slipping, wheels
spinning: bushes
sparkle in the headlights:
imagine being out
2990for a night
restless & wakeful with
cold, some child
coughing—or crying
with fever:
2995who are we
on this globe?
how & at what cost
have we survived?
deer & birds:
3000are they cold?
maybe one way of
coming home is
into silence,
restfulness from words,
3005freedom from the mill
that grinds
reality into sound:
why do I need to throw
this structure
3010against the flow
which I cannot stop?
is there something
unyielding in me that
can’t accept
3015the passing away of days
and birds
flowers & leaves?
it’s always never return
for them:
3020that way, day by day, for
me & you:
acquiescence, acceptance:
the silent passage into
the stream, going along,
3025not holding back:
I try to transfigure these
days
so you’ll want to keep
them:
3030come back to them: from
where?
from the running honey
of reality & life?
come back:
3035I hold these days aloft,
empty boxes
you can exist in: but
when you live in them
you hurry out of your own
3040life:
if my meaning is
to befriend you,
must I turn you
away?
3045I stop to fasten, and
currents
swirl around, over
me, wearing my
structures away, teaching
3050me not to grasp, not to
try to keep:
why does a man sit alone
and question
the answerless air where
3055no blood stirs
and no lips move?
this love, fashioned
into acts,
might bring a lonely
3060person
purpose enough:
what’s the nature
of this carrying-on?
generations to come: are
3065they more precious,
estimable, than these
that are?
can a lip quiver with
more need
3070then than now?
I have a notion to be
wordless, but
active with immediate
deed, open
3075with the glance of my
need, direct,
humble in my going,
glad
as the thoughtless are:
3080are we creators in fact
or collectors of relics:
do we make grow
or cast into stone?
19 DEC:
this ole world could be
3085one
if it wusn’t
for hate
bustin it apart,
keeps
3090crackin it
into little pieces:
love, I mean, could
rise up there love
and make all the
3095children dance
shaking breasts & hips,
pelvis
shooting in & out
and all kine of sanging
3100going on:
summer coming back just
like it hadn’t been
nowhere:
and the bees
3105bumbling
in the hollyhocks:
calves kicking up their
heels &
the spring roosters
3110crashing into crows:
in Praxagora’s perfect
world, tho,
the maiden could be had
only after the hag
3115was served:
and what would we do with
our hate?
turning hate outward, we
keep dense & pure
3120our inward love:
can we incorporate our
enemies?
can we maintain a high
degree of difference
3125within unity’s cluster?
give room, latitude, widen
the band
of acceptance: we live
in strictures of hate
3130& suspicion, intolerance
& doubt:
absorb the margins:
enlarge the range:
give life room:
20 DEC:
3135today is cold: hit
ten last night:
and it not winter
yet:
the sun comes high
3140into the room: strikes
the inside wall
three feet up from the
floor:
we’re going to Philly tdy:
3145little more shopping:
7:19 pm: oh it was a cold
windy day, jaw-tight,
ear-numb, nose-runny, cold
windy day: the sun
3150seemed to do no good
(pigeons hovered
in the morning sun
along the steel trusses
of overpasses) and the
3155wind burst
from intersections down
the dark street-canyons:
concrete, stone, steel,
hard & cold:
3160having shopped for hrs,
I sat a
few minutes
in the waiting room (on
the balcony) at
3165Wanamaker’s:
(or do they call that
the gallery?):
mostly old folks:
some dozed: the eyes of
3170some begged
out of strictures:
the circles of reach:
in the womb, confinement:
then, opening, the
&nb
sp; 3175bassinet: the cradle,
playpen, the house, to
school, enlarging always
the widening circle: then
away to college
3180or military service, the
circle so large
now as to be
congruent with earth—
the total openness:
3185then the gradual
shrinking,
stiffening, the star-
brittle bones,
eyes fading,
3190arm-reach,
and the last
confinement:
my, my: & nothing to be
done:
3195nothing to be done!
is any time left?
carpe diem, snatch, grab,
hasten, do, jump, go:
get the rose, da
3200rose, da rosa baby: see
that girl? when
she turns her head
& stands lost, her eyes
blank with something forgot,
3205universes
crack up into little
pieces & blow away
and something quite
silvery
3210starts singing—right
out in public
and whoever said men can’t
be blossoms because
looking at her,
3215near her,
they
bloom warm,
they just rise up,
something liberally
3220extending itself,
expanding
and they turn to hot jelly
& freezing little bits
of ice
3225and say “God” under their
breaths
and under the burden of
something too much
to have or lose:
3230it’s go: go & green:
the day we went to York
I saw
a black&white cow
standing close to
3235the sunny side of a barn:
animals know a good many
things: they’d
take over if
they had hands:
21 DEC:
3240the jay was out
before sunrise
wheeling & dealing
& around noon
a covey of quail
3245enjoyed (apparently)
the sunlit margin
between the back lawn
and the sumac grove:
now, at 3:58 pm the
3250sun is yellow,
coming into its
horizontal: about
a half hour to go:
they used to say
3255“half hour sun”:
I used to tell
sun-time, right
out of the burning clock:
have a gold watch, now,
3260that takes its heat
from me: times change:
our tree, which I just
put up, was
“Grown in Canada”
3265&
comes via
Puyallup, Washington:
the tag says:
22 DEC:
we lost our mule Kate in
3270the fall
to a chattel mortgage:
men backed the truck
up into a shallow
ditch, dropped the ramp,
3275& with twitch & whip
loaded her on:
it seemed, rather than
justice,
violation, breakage:
3280tearing into
a mule’s knowledge: &
I stood by, a boy,
violated & hard:
Kate was small, willing
3285at a touch of straw
to run a wagon harder than
you meant:
she lunged in the
high-boarded truck:
3290her ears flicked, her
eyes set back, blank &
reasonless: she
drowned from herself & us
when the motor, roaring
3295over all meaning,
tore into gear:
farm with no mule:
the corn she made
to lie all winter
3300in a barn’s weevil-dust
& rat droppings:
in the spring, a tragic
mule, bony,
majestical
3305came to us:
never forget first time I
saw her, coming down the
Chadbourn road: my
father went to town
3310in the morning:
late that afternoon,
sitting on the washbench,
waiting, I saw him
coming, new wagon &
3315new mule:
she seemed hardly to be
walking,
but the legs went out &
out in a reach
3320that covered ground:
I called her Silver—O
loved beast,
dead & gone,
not to be lost from mind
3325& song—
because
though huge & tired, she
wd rise to her hindlegs
at a touch of heels to
3330her sides
and run stiff & fast: like
the Lone Ranger’s horse:
& Silver was black:
she possessed the
3335mark of play,
a liveliness silly,
inappropriate & great:
10:17 pm:
we went to church at 4
3340this afternoon:
I held a lighted candle
in my hand—as all the
others did—and helped
sing “Silent Night”: the
3345church lights were doused:
the preacher lit his
candle & from his the
deacons lit theirs &
then the deacons went down
3350the aisles & gave light to
each row
& the light poured
down the rows &
the singing started:
3355though the forces
have different names
in different places &
times, they are
real forces which we
3360don’t understand:
I can either believe
in them or doubt them &
I believe:
I believe that man is
3365small
& of short duration in the
great, incomprehensible,
& eternal: I believe
it’s necessary to do
3370good
as we can best define it:
I believe we must
discover & accept the
terms
3375that best testify:
I’m on the side of
whatever the reasons are
we are here:
we do the best we can
3380& it’s not enough:
23 DEC:
I was thinking when I woke
up how much more I wanted
ice cream than breakfast:
the wake-up radio was
3385saying
the most dread terror is
fire at sea
(ship burning in the
Atlantic with 800 aboard)
3390and that forecast for
today was snow, turning
along the coast into
sleet & rain:
release us from mental
3395prisons into the actual
fact, the mere
occurrence—the touched,
tasted, heard, seen:
in the simple event is
3400the scope of life:
let’s not make up
categories to toss ourselves
around with:
look: it’
s snowing:
3405without theory
& beyond help:
I accept:
I can react with
restlessness & quiet
3410terror, or with
fascination &
delight: I choose the
side of possibility:
the snow’s angling
3415into the sumac thicket:
I see black &
white, every twig
highlighted: if I were
looking with the snow,
3420I’d see
all white:
4:48 pm: the vowels are
lifting around here: breve
a is becoming breve i:
3425“I c’int stind it.”
mansion is minson: palace,
pillice:
O Chaucer:
Muse, you’re an
3430eagle in the mind: when
you fly away
the air’s relaxed
& empty:
come back:
3435maybe you’re sick of
domestic details & long
for some swept
transfigurations,
leading, transforming
3440ideas, details
lifted into a
marshaled whirl:
I had
decided to
3445give up all
but details:
decision
is sandhouse without you:
I acknowledge you, am
3450miserable without you:
come again
and make your will in me:
or are you here now
whipping a tired spirit
3455the best you can?
I admit
I’ve shot my load:
but I can’t stop: give