by A. R. Ammons
me a second wind:
3460it’s there, I’m sure
of it, somewhere in the
mind—another valve to
open:
let it open &
3465fill this tape
plentifully up: let
the brim break: tear
thru surface tension
to the spring:
3470the volcano shoots &
rests, gathering: the
man shoots &
gathers: give me
a continuous, smooth
3475shooting, rich
uninterrupted flowing:
do you want me to
wrestle & beg, testify
your absence: I’ve
3480made a long
piece of it:
26 DEC:
today is bright, warm:
supposed to go up to 40:
ice in shade:
3485sidewalks & walkways
slippery:
look what small beach
animals have made: a
ruddy bird
3490with curved beak
that turns stones
looking for
small beach animals!
(the consumed sustains the
3495consuming form)
thought, too, is voracious:
Berenson sd
the Gothic arch
ground three centuries of
3500design
into gothic arches: a
dominant form,
consuming insistence:
(here I’m probably
3505converting the fine,
shaped,
differentiated world
into
undifferentiated grist)
3510I devour the sunlight off
leaves,
the sound out of jet
engines, I devour
the whistle out of
3515the bird,
bust his
guts open
and devour
their churning:
3520where is the
source?
I eat the wind, frilly as
a nap, off the
mossbeds: I get down
3525& close-up consume
the sense of velvet
off green winter moss:
my heart eats the shape of
your face:
3530tell me, tell one
moorless in the drift
of broken forms, who is
the conceiver who
will pour this
3535regurgitated pab
into the
transfigured
saucepans, winejars,
breadbaskets, garages,
3540space stations
of the new time?
you’ve heard the larva
chew
in the wood?
3545grit, grit, grit,
metronomic?
tell me—after
wood’s passage through
guts,
3550who will recall the tree?
something’s cooking in
this life!
can you get on to it?
(will you need to
3555be helped off?)
integrations &
disintegrations:
nothing that goes in
comes out the same
3560& nothing that comes out
has ever been the same
before:
small beach animals make
ruddy turnstones &
3565wood meat makes larvae:
but where did the
turnstone
get the shape
by which he consumes? &
3570how
the larva
find that special
form of stridence?
things are related by
3575opposition & similarity:
but the periphery
vanishes into nothingness,
the stabilizer:
interior-ward
3580is the going in & out
of shape,
substance running
through shapes of itself,
itself the running:
3585the container & the
contained are
somewhere
contained by the
universal noncontainer:
3590frogs & snakes
keep the hawk’s shrill
whistle greased!
thought jails!
keep us out!
3595but
if we get too free,
all the way
into unrelated,
fractured sensation,
3600call us back, jail,
occasionally
so we can get a good
night’s sleep:
since there are feelings
3605(& thoughts) I can’t
express
through the forms of
society,
here I make other forms,
3610play-forms,
to express them through:
that’s the center:
maybe you’re listing with
hidden passions, too: you
3615can work
them off through
play-shapes, as I
do:
use mine:
3620get all the good
out of them you can:
clean up:
you have to take your
place
3625at dinner: make decent
conversation:
we have certain forms:
reality is to accept them
at face cost & value,
3630change them
at peril
& if you do change them
stay awake
all night
3635wondering what worse forms
will take their place:
careful how you go fooling
around with things: or
like me
3640make sure you’re
fooling:
fooling takes
instinct off:
(it’s nice to
3645have a good, quiet dinner:
wonderful to sleep,
the cop on duty—
better look out
before you
3650get dissatisfied, you may
be in for a real
gypping)
can I have that virgin?
nope:
3655why?
she’s taken:
who says?
’ciety:
I want her!
3660sorry:
I can’t stand it!
sorry:
better be careful, bub:
ever thought of taking
3665up a little painting?
ever been
interested in “expressing”
yourself in words?
think you’d like it:
3670jever think of taking up
mountain climbing:
beautiful sport!
dangle from
shocking heights, shoot
3675off at peaks:
like babes!
like cool it: run it
into approved
channels:
3680irrigation
in reverse: run it off:
lower the pressure
on the dam:
nice hobbies?
3685stead of making that
married lady with the
biggies,
jever think of making
chairs?
3690photography is nice:
sing a song for sweet
society: keeps
ballocks in a row,
where if you can’t
3695have every gal
still—obey
the rules—
there’s one you can
have
3700all
your own
and nobody can take her
away from
you
or he’ll wind up in
3705court or behine bars:
sat simple:
think you could have one
of your own
without not having all the
3710others?
see that man’s house?
I want it:
you can’t have it:
why can’t I?
3715it ain’t yourn:
why?
because:
I’ll take it:
you can’t:
3720why can’t I?
because:
there is a way:
get good marks in
kindergarten &
3725discipline yourself so
the teacher likes you
& praises you & tells the
whole community how
wonderful you are:
3730& on up through college:
& don’t get in any
trouble:
& then invent something or
start a business, and if it
3735fails, start another:
or work your way up
through
a corporation: or start
saving early—invest wisely:
3740someday you may get
a house very much
like that one—you
may be able to buy
that very one
3745if your tastes
haven’t changed in
the meantime:
sheez!
it’s called “coming to
3750one’s senses”:
10:15 pm:
it’s been a beautiful
day: warmth
made the light
3755glossier: the cedars
and firs
stood
sprung into freedom,
snowless:
3760the windy morning
moved a trillion
waves & branches:
streams
ran clear in the gutters
3765from opaque
ice:
gutters running under
bright skies,
silent,
3770ripples unpeopled
by raindrops, oiled
ripples of motion:
energy
released from the sun
3775made the gutters
run: a fact,
ordinary & miraculous:
touch over great
distance: the cool melt
3780from a vast,
frying body:
that it’s there:
that we’re here!
we, dependent,
3785helpless, doing the best
we can:
bacteria multiply by
simple division:
changeless transmission:
3790but also
they multiply sexually,
testing conditions
with mutant
possibilities:
3795we must keep the
tradition &
modify it
so we stay resilient to
change:
3800too traditional is loss of
change: too changing is
loss of meaning & memory:
27 DEC:
today is
cloudy
3805in several ways:
details of pain,
causes of shivering: but
this must be done:
it’s fairly warm,
3810tho—speaking now
entirely of the weather:
may rain:
could turn cold
enough to snow again
3815(none of my business)
I saw the jay
before breakfast:
he looked a little
grimy, gray,
3820like old blue snow:
has had rough
times lately:
rough times is ordinary,
will not make
3825the news:
the sun, screened dim by
clouds, enters the room,
strikes my typewriter,
throws shadow on
3830the wall,
just touches
the flower-tip of a
crown-of-thorns branch:
ecology is my word: tag
3835me with that: come
in there:
you will find yourself
in a firmless country:
centers & peripheries
3840in motion,
organic,
interrelations!
that’s the door: here’s
the key: come in,
3845celebrant,
to one meaning
that totals my meanings:
the circular lichen
spotting the tree
3850trunk
is
like a moral order: there
is a center
where with threads the
3855lichen knits in, the
“holding-on” point
that gathers stability
from bark: and there
is
3860the outward multiplication
of forms (cells & patterns)
to an unprescribed
periphery
that marks the
3865moment-to-moment edge
of growth:
the cougar, big in
size & appetite,
ranges widely:
3870he won’t turn
a square mile
into desert:
travels out into the
country of his sustenance,
3875incorporating herds of
deer
within his trails
and how thin
the tissue of his going
3880is! one month in
the northwest of his
range,
a month in valleys,
a month at
3885higher altitudes:
he’s adapted to travel:
it’s not in his
interest
to exhaust
3890the deer population, as
it’s not our interest
to exhaust the host earth:
the predator
husbands his prey:
3895at the center,
the predatory gathering
of energy done,
the female drops her litter,
new seeds of possibility:
3900new animal-plants
to take root,
spread out the wide
thin tissue
of life:
3905tapestries! figures
overlapping:
at the dwindling of green
a percentage of
aphids begins to be
3910born with wings: time
to fly away &
make trials of new centers:
ecology out of balance
turns tilt into
3915direction:
when the milkweed
seed
rises into the wind
on down,
3920the soft beauty
means conquest:
let’s establish ourselves,
send out our tokens:
as I am I
3925I will change you,
drop seeds of myself
in your ground:
watch out for me:
I mean to prevail:
3930you think of yourself:
I may welcome some
thought of yours: I
may give it ground:
or I may not yield
3935to it: I may find
it lacking,
not able to survive
my country,
& cast it out
3940as
already withered
in potentiality:
the plains Indians centered
their lives
3945on the chase: rooted in
a moving herd
of buffalo!
a center
stabilized
3950in instability:
or the reverse: the
barnacle
on a rock, stationary,
depends on the sea
3955to bring it food:
where is the center
that holds?
it was the Earth,
became the sun, then
3960the center of our
galaxy (Sagittarius?)
then farther &
farther out:
no
3965imaginable center: except
the one
the lichen makes:
my other word is
provisional:
3970we’ll talk about that
someday,
tho you may guess
the meanings from ecology:
don’t establish the
3975boundaries
first,
the squares, triangles,
boxes
of preconceived
3980possibility,
and then
pour
life into them, trimming
off left-over edges,
3985ending potential:
let centers
proliferate
from
self-justifying motions!
3990the box can’t bend
without breaking:
but the center-arising
form
adapts, tests the
3995peripheries, draws in,
finds a new factor,
utilizes a new method,
gains a new foothold,
responds to inner & outer
4000change:
28 DEC:
today
is dim
again:
the sun makes diffuse
4005shadows
that go
in & out
of focus: