by A. R. Ammons
days:
an ant reconnoitering
5715the kitchen counter:
is’t that hot?
& a squirrel out:
the fool sayeth there is
no God
5720because he can’t tell
what He is:
the wise man sayeth there is
a God
because he can’t tell
5725what He is:
there’s unity,
but objects don’t
describe it:
nor do words:
5730if you go east on an
east-west highway
this time of year
you will find dirty
snow
5735on the right (by woods)
and a sunny bank (by
woods) on the left:
the reason is,
with the sun low south,
5740the trees
turn their shadows
on one side:
that’s a fact:
caught up
5745in an abstract
configuration:
a further reason is, the
highway’s wider
than the length
5750of the shadows:
wouldn’t work with
footpaths or woods roads:
the proposition is:
when the width of the
5755highway exceeds the length
of the tree shadows (depends
on the kind of
forest—sequoias
would require a
5760vast
thoroughfare) then one
roadbank will be
sunny
(providing it isn’t cloudy)
5765:
or night:
:
unless there’s
a moon:
5770:
in which case
it would be
moony: etc:
now, predict
5775yourself some things with
high probability:
of course, it must have
snowed:
& mostly melted:
5 JAN:
5780today is sunny & it may
be warm again:
the jay was in
the cherry
tree
5785breastward to the sun &
he jumped up & opened his
underwings
to the warmth,
looped & flew away:
5790went to dinner last
night (jayless)
at Copsey’s
with Tom & Mary
& we all
5795had lobster tails:
feller said was the best
tail he ever had anywhere:
program & comment in most
music:
5800not
in
Bach
or
Mozart:
5805there, the clear-cut
lofty
motions of musical forms:
no knights thundering
through woods, as in Mahler:
5810no mania cross-country-in-
the-clouds
of Beethoven’s Ninth:
in Bach & Mozart
the meanings are
5815detached, exist among
themselves:
emotion lifts
to intellectual feeling:
without abstraction,
5820fact is
meaningless with isolation:
but abstraction by
the loss of fact
is “out of this world”:
6 JAN:
5825today is splennid again:
sunny as to leave no
clouds to be excused:
how I coughed
through black time-gaps
5830& time-emergences
last night:
red-eyed & indoors
today:
coming home:
5835through spotted round
stones with
egg-careful feet:
through thornbrush
across emery sand:
5840who was that I was?
who’s that from
rumblings, dark baffles,
trying to
break, overriding
5845into song?
give me some imago I can’t
become:
steadfast in the
unrealizable:
5850when we solve, we’re
saved by deeper problems:
definition is death:
the final box:
hermetic seal:
5855relieve our hunger, then,
for forms:
give us the
inexhaustible feed: the
box is full outside:
5860(a drop forms at the
icicle-tip, tapers, pulls
free, rounds-up (slightly
flattened falling-side)
breaks free (little
5865explosion of fact)—
the precise event
(sometimes audible)
when it hits the ground)
jever watch a leaf
5870trying to turn over?
one edge may be
caught
by the projection of a
stonelette
5875from hard ground:
the wind
whiffs
and the free edge lifts:
falls back:
5880trembles a little
in steady, low wind:
gusts way up,
nearly vertical,
nearly flop-overable,
5885but falls back—
oops, caught
still at a
45-degree angle
by a sheet of steady,
5890higher wind (higher
than the low):
the action seems no way
intended to satisfy
you—that is, complete
5895itself
by flopping over:
sometimes after hours
of agonizing
expectancy,
5900the wind,
suddenly & inexplicably,
will die down:
maybe, it’ll be
rain finally that turns
5905the leaf over
or floats it off its
hang-up:
or a
completely
5910unanticipated deer
may step
right next to it
& so disorder the ground
as to shift the
5915stonelette
1/64" away: so should a
wind rise
then
why the leaf would have
5920time to gain momentum
before it struck the
hang
& so, whirling,
somersaulting,
5925wd vault right over:
but the leaf may
jam &
leap free all in a
second!
5930breathlessly satisfying:
nature’s entertaining
but makes no effort:
go thru life: some things
you see, some you don’t:
5935they told me the
small world was concrete,
inexhaustible, & where
to dwell:
so I dwelt there:
5940& went smaller &
smaller till
everything turned into a
wave-particle
dilemma:
5945nothing to hold, taste,
hear, or see:
11:08 pm:
day exhausts:
night renews:
5950forms of thought
please or terrify, but
tire:
the mind
in its strife
5955for completion
pales, blurs, dries &
crinkles up:
sleep turns
another way: to the
5960spring: what’s the source
of that fresh water?
how
does it come up into our
days?
7 JAN:
5965today is rainy:
started around 7 last nite:
a quiet
warm rain,
musical in the gutterspouts:
5970I woke up a lot
coughing last night
and my awareness would
break into
the rain’s-song—a segment of
5975consciousness—right on
key & phrase: rain’s never
out of tune: a ragged
range of sound, small &
large events, assuming
5980a low, bell-like
resonance:
random averaging
into clusters of random:
there’s a blur-shadow of
5985sun:
it’s clearing up:
the window edges on the
wall are sharpening:
what’s going to happen?
5990no, the blur dies:
the window disappears from
the wall:
not now, not yet:
two jays in the sumac
5995grove: they make
no patterns:
as would three or four:
from branch to ground
to cherry tree
6000to lawn: always two
poles
of an invisible world,
shrinking, enlarging,
dipping, twisting its
6005axis:
two points of radiation:
two sources
with magnetic field:
close in
6010and the emotions rise—
anger
or affection—
and then one jay flies
away:
6015even so, the magnetic
lines hang
with tenuous hold:
sometimes you can keep
track
6020of the patterns five birds
make in a woods edge or
open tree:
beyond that,
you start to have the
6025large round
congregations,
individuals
lost to the general
symmetry:
6030random flocks with overall
direction:
facts are that way: more
than a few
& the facts are lost
6035in a round hypothesis:
while one fact
or two,
though surprising & concrete,
can’t make a meaning:
6040another haze of sun
and a quail calls from the
field:
only the lively use of
language lives:
6045can live
on dead words
& falsehood: the
truths poetry creates
die with
6050their language:
stir any old
language up,
feel the fire in it &
its truths come true
6055again:
the resource, the
creation, and the end of
poetry is
language: the
6060mead-mad bard
did not
depend
on nuclear physics for his
song,
6065but on mead & word:
other elements are:
1)isolated perception
2)related perception
3)imagination: word &
6070image in surprise
4)transfiguration
5)dream: ego &
transfiguration
& there’s feeling,
6075invisible matrix: &
music!
the going tension
that holds us,
suspends, rises & falls,
6080the going on:
poetry is art & is
artificial: but it
realizes reality’s
potentials:
6085Channel 12 (NET) just gave
this list of common
nouns, with plurals:
quarrel
quarrels
shelf
shelves
6090
study
studies
donkey
donkeys
canary
canaries
goose
geese
speech
speeches
6095
knife
knives
ditch
ditches
deer
deer
hear the sounds,
note the ir-
6100regularities, the vagrancies
& rules:
a language is a particular
instrument
with possibilities
6105peculiar to itself: bring
out the facts:
utilize & heighten
them into untranslatable
sound:
6110which is the other element:
(the substance of
music: tho music is an
integration higher than
pure sound—oriented
6115into waves)
poetry has no use, except
this entertaining play:
passion is
vulgar when not swept up
6120into the cool control
of syllables:
sorrow is brown & empty
unless
ocean vowels thunder
6125from it in
organizations like surf:
then is sorrow that never
was,
come in an ocean
6130that cannot reproduce
itself:
11:10 a.m:
the sun’s bright
through the window:
6135hits the right side of
the thornbush,
illuminating half a
dozen
green leaves:
6140they’ll make food
& pass it around
to limbs that got no sun
today:
thornbush island: sits
6145in an old
triangular ashtray
in a red round
ceramic pot:
ashtray sits on a dry rug:
6150removes from nature
& the sweet ground:
in the pot, a soil,
reticular with roots:
add water
6155&
leaves sprout:
blossoms blossom:
where’s the living part
that transfigures this?
6160under the rug is a mat:
under the mat is
oak floor & subfloor:
under the floor is
7 feet of space
6165&
under that
12 inches of concrete
and under
that
6170the ground:
o island!
how distant you
are
from the true hold!
6175(& earth will send out
seed
in self-sufficient ships,
beading
space with possibilities—
6180what a separation)
(somewhere
they
may
take
6185hold
again!)
how many levels of drought
& stone
have I put
6190between
my soil & flower?
poetry’s my
/> false water, black
soil,
6195dry blossom:
get out of boxes, hard
forms of mind:
go deep:
penetrate
6200to the true spring:
give up
these islands:
(they’re safely apart—
but apart:
6205take the risk of
moving in)
merge with coming &
going common life:
drink
6210the average
drink:
the system apart, complete:
add water
& serve the bloom:
6215bloom that doesn’t
come to seed,
no need throughout the
rooms
answering the need:
62202:18 pm: didn’t
stay sunny long:
say it may
rain again: but then
tonight clear off
6225& turn cold:
8 JAN:
today is sunny & warming:
last night the temperature
must have dropped lower
than the predicted 30:
6230because yesterday’s
rainpools were
frozen half an
inch deep this morning:
(see where the tires broke
6235through)
sunny & cheerless:
no mail (as usual) at the
box: three requests
for subscriptions from
6240magazines: thrown out
unopened:
lonely, isolated business:
since what one sez or duz
means nothing, one is
6245free to sa & du
what one likes: nobody
will get very jarred or
pleased: one
acquires the
6250indifference & moderation
of neglect:
it’s out of order to
be passionate with
concrete:
6255or try to lift a