The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1
Page 22
(just now, the
4010thorns
are black
against the wall)
maybe it’s gonna clear off:
not very cold:
4015there comes the exactness
again:
pulsing:
gaits:
short/quick-stepping Kate:
4020Silver,
long & languorous:
what
to do in case of fall-out:
put it
4025back in & use
shorter strokes:
brushstrokes:
short, straight, narrow
strokes
4030that blend & move
into vague scenes:
the broad, long
swash of color:
the paroxysmic:
4035the full, slow
inner & outer reach:
wavelengths:
distance, elapse of time
from crest to crest, from
4040point of highest
stirred feeling
to highest point: the
silky, fiery
considerations
4045down the hills
and shallows and up
the rises
of repeating motions:
rhythm, pace:
4050Silver, majestical,
slow but sure: the
turn-plow
turned earth
to overturning rivers:
4055smooth, rockless,
alluvial country,
free of stumps:
stump-holes, tho—still
in the pasture: the
4060hollow shells—inside
the crater lake
of ancient wood-ambered
rain, wriggling larvae,
hanging head-down from
4065the surface,
breathing through
their tails, & tiny green
frogs
hidden in crevices
4070over canyons of wood:
the thick, grazed
carpet grass
smooth in patches
around inedible
4075wire-grass clumps:
worlds:
the only longleaf pine
left
stood tall & spare-boughed
4080as land-corner:
marker between
neighbor & us:
mystical tree:
half ours,
4085half his, neither
able to take his half
without loss of all
& in addition
transfigured by
4090boundary-meaning,
entered in the record
(history in the
courthouse)
a sign:
4095spared: let us take on
meanings to
keep us:
standing alone in the
edge of the pasture,
4100near the road
(the road when it came
through
cut off a sliver of the
neighbor’s land
4105so it was worthless to
him—our pasture
fence included his
sliver &
the tree stood in from the
4110road—is the way it really
was: and the road &
tree became symbols
of two kinds of truth,
competing:
4115the tree, ideals of
truth:
the road, the use of
this world
& compromise)
4120high sparse
branches
sang
thin songs:
(one of my uncles, I
4125heard said, used to
go into the woods to pray,
always to a
particular tree:
a praying tree—
4130must have had
meanings
in it)
if you don’t think
mechanisms work
4135in the green
becoming
of
the
lichen, I don’t care
4140what you think: it’s
one-sided,
unaware that
crystals, even,
exist
4145as fluids:
thallophyte & green
alga
living together,
with
4150necessary exchanges:
abstraction may
sight far
over the facts
& fall
4155short or broken
but meantime it shows
saliences of going:
its spare thin
beauty
4160is relating:
reason & feeling
living together, with
necessary exchanges:
guidelines—but readiness
4165to adjust
to changed
environments:
what is it that persists
through generations,
4170throwing its pattern
ahead?
an earth-product,
I don’t represent
all my wills:
4175others, not mine, are
in me:
still, when the
feelings are working
right, knowledge
4180is redundant: one
doesn’t analyze
the good
condition: one
accepts,
4185without consciously
accepting, and enjoys:
let’s
reach out
from this
4190loneliness with
as much love as
we can:
grief is on us:
we’re not
4195just right:
we are hurled
away by
exaggeration:
line us up!
4200that’s our directed,
undirected, or misdirected
wish:
give us an earth
between these frozen poles:
4205gates:
entrances: doorways:
wombs:
outward gates: exits:
broken walls,
4210bridged rivers & fallen
mountains:
give us the being
whole
wherever we are:
4215intellect has
cast
temporary resolutions:
pity—it’s not
all intellect’s fault—
4220that now we see
breakage
(fragmentation & high
entropy)
but
4225high entropy
is not loss of pattern:
we can’t see:
the man who feels good
has a shortage of
4230problems:
he’s cabbage-cool
& -sweet:
we must—since
there’s only one universe—
4235bear the tearing up
before we can enjoy the
putting together,
the adjusted putting
together
4240that gives us
fuller touch
of what we know:
tho the crust
floats with under- &
4245over-seas, it’s hard
as rock
& anchorages
in motion are
solider than rock:
4250rock wears:
motion is the full
openness of possibility:
our existence is
evidence
4255of more
than we can imagine: much
we can’t see
is working right:
let’s
celebrate
4260that part of our
ignorance
& keep on
till we learn better how to
praise:
4265will you leave
the Lord
& sit down
in a man-made misery?
then
4270you’ve postulated a lot
for yourself
& lost:
that we’re going is
reason to be going on:
4275(the dance
& warm red dry wine!)
dance! you splendid
creatures!
your heel-strings
4280sing like plucked
instruments!
your skirts whirl
worlds
with inner secrets!
4285swing!
your partner,
promenade (and when
you can
get laid
4290get laid)
first to the right, then
to the left, right, left
(get lawfully
laid)
4295Muse, no mortal
can have
enough of you:
he wants bigger &
bigger draughts: he wants
4300to get drunk on
and in you:
he wants to consume you:
can you stand to be
nibbled on, Parnassus, by
4305a million nibblers?
wonder there’s any
chance I could
chew off a big
hunk of you?
4310would you
mind
more than
the
tickle of
4315tiny
teeth?
from the gouge I made in
you
would gush springs up,
4320too, Pierian,
bread washed down
with wine:
(better confine myself
to steak)
4325the immortal body
replenishes itself,
the constant banquet:
so they did eat & drink:
and you keep giving me
4330juice,
I may drive through
all this
raillery
& come on
4335the vine-water of truth,
the slot
of hazeless sight:
and you give me the ole
steam, baby,
4340I may get all these
gargoyles up,
lined around the high
edges,
and then you may give
4345me
two or three columns
& a plain wall:
and I can keep bringing this
stuff up,
4350every fool thing
shining in
the light of its
foolishness,
I may get
4355cleaned out
good,
worthy to taste your
simple fare:
oh wash all the crap out!
4360I want to tremble with
need
when I reach for yr bread:
let lust for yr wine
parch my tongue
4365so
the bread sticks:
I hate hungering
& thirsting,
yet will I
4370hunger & thirst
and go to the foot
of the table,
pinch crumbs
off the floor—if you
4375will grant me
wide arm-reach
& lifted
voice
so the table shakes
4380& the people enter
the maze of yr presence!
come on, now, f’god’s
sake, what’re you saving
it for?
4385the light
reclines:
of a brightness not yet
gold: white gold:
Bach runs in his high
4390rant
from the record
player:
we’re going
out
4395to dinner:
30 DEC:
today is 19 &
sunny:
the still-warm tide
comes in
4400&
the shallowing marshes
freeze & keep it:
increments of
continental shelf:
4405ocean loss:
we may sink:
the gulls fly inland
looking:
the dump swarms with
4410gulls & smoke:
yesterday I gave
to the memory of
William Carlos Williams
(reception in NY
4415for Mrs. Williams)
sat in the back of
the bus up
& the motor ground my
head to dust (gray,
4420graphitic)
& a man fell
in a fit
in the bus station: three
men held him till
4425he jerked still:
a crowd circled &
watched:
(we’re monkeys, scratching
our heads
4430& asses &
dumb with joy & tragedy)
so many people
with bodies only:
so many bldgs with
4435mere addresses:
buses, subways, cabs,
somebody everywhere:
fragments: faces never to
be seen again: isolations:
4440poets, peaks of need,
loose cold
majesties,
sizing heights, cut off
from the common
4445stabilizing ground of their
admirers:
peaks relate across
thin
&
4450icy air:
how good to be back
here
with ruin’s blue-bottle fly,
whole fields wasted with
4455grass,
an empty cherry tree
& one jay:
sunlight on the wall
with precise
4460black thorn:
5 pm:
some rosy drifts
still in
the west:
4465are the days
gathering moments at
the edges?
every moment
of light
4470nudges
my cold
rhododendron &
every inch
of this rising tape
4475ruffles my blood
for the gathered product,
the heaping hamper,
accomplished florescence:
empty places
4480make room
for
silence to
gather:
high-falutin
4485language does not
rest on the
cold water
all night
by
4490the luminous
birches:
is too vivid
for the eyes
of pigeons,
4495heads tucked
under wings in
first
patches of sunlight:
is too noisy to
4500endure
the sleep of buds,
the holding in
of the huckleberry
blossom:
4505too voracious
to spin,
rest
& change:
is too clever
4510for the frank
honey-drop
of the lily-pistil:
I hear the
porkchops frying!
4515ah,
there’s the sweet,
burnt
smell!
sounds in the kitchen,
pots lifted
4520with empty
hushing ring,
the plunger of the icebox
door
snapping loose: the
4525sizzling roil of
porkchops turned:
protest, response:
flashes of aluminum
light
4530as the pots work, the
glint of tines
as the table
dresses: the
holy
4535slow
lifting & turning
in the spinach pot:
rituals, hungers,
motions over
4540fire,
the stance &
tending:
I hear & visualize
& the drop
4545under the tongue
bulbs clear
& pressing:
what’s that sound?
mashed potatoes being
4550whipped?
there, a chop turned:
cups winding up
still in saucers:
the grasping snip of
4555celery stalks:
the high whir of
the garbage disposer,
chewed clear:
a rough, troubled sound
4560now
of another charge, maybe
the grapefruit rinds:
“You
can
4565come
sit
down
now
if
4570you
want
to.”
6:08 pm:
no vegetables at all:
4575(the grapefruit I had
earlier—is that
a vegetable?) we had
porkchops & rice &
a salad (pecans, raisins,
4580apples, celery, lettuce):
so wonderful to be just
the outside edge of
painfully full:
then coffee!
4585I wish my words could
be quiet