by A. R. Ammons
aren’t going to fill out, your
biceps firm up:
past fifty the muscles
string free, lean separations into thew and bone:
40pushing fifty, you notice that the
crest due or normal to arrive has
arrived or isn’t coming, not
ever coming, not at all, but something else
quite different, that is certainly coming
45my friend said
if you can
learn to swim
or fence at
forty or crochet
50at forty-two age is just numbers
I go back odd that
over and often death the evidence
to repeat myself: for which is
where repetition is absolute
55imperfect is completely
possibility clears incredible
each of us
exception’s single
One Must Recall as One Mourns the Dead
One must recall as one mourns the dead
60to mourn the dead and so not mourn too much
thinking how deprived away the dead lie
from the gold and red of our rapt wishes
and not mourn the dead too much who having
broken at the lip the nonesuch
65bubble oblivion, the cold grape of ease at
last in whose range no further
ravages afflict the bones, no more
fires flash through the flarings of dreams
do not mourn the dead too much who bear no
70knowledge, have no need or fear of pain,
and who never again must see death
come upon what does not wish to die
Things Change, the Shit Shifts
Things change, the shit shifts,
byways and sideways,
75break out, horn in,
step in the same do twice
I followed the swamp
hogs off, I picked meat
with cousinly buzzards,
80I got rotten meat out
of the ears of old
raccoons while under
the skin next to the
ground, maggots rippled
85in the heat like breezy water
the levelest look’s the jaguar’s
peccary gaze (deadset to flare)
or the weaving thermal gaze of
the viper for the small mammal, mama
90mia, cute frisky little rascal
the curvature of the necessity rides
no more skyward but rounds off,
a comedown comeuppance: in a fallish time,
the birds’ gatherings and flights
95skim treetops, not
much entering in now, no nests, pausing to consider
or dwell, the wide
storm winter coming
.Envy
100Let your friend have
as much of the
world as he can
have, what does
he have: the
105wind blows it
away and your friend
also and
you, freeing all
from any trace of taint
110
but because the dust
mills all looks,
tastes, honors fine,
because of that the
115small hope
cannot extinguish itself
that some flavor
of the self, indelible
in dust,
120qualifies the common end
we are abandoned
here to found
our lives on gossamer
125distinctions
where steel rusts
& rock cannot hold
My
my
longslobberer
130palaver &belaborer
palaverer
(biggest old ugliest
awfulest-looking thang)
Price Slashed (whew)
135For . . .
QUICK SALE
treetops twittering
birds windily gathering
heading south for
140the scallop, scallop-through, in the ridge:
the jay
quince-sits
a minute
and flies north
145into the coloring thicket
when we learn we are trashI’d rather be
flimsy, flowable, our holding the flakey
trivial and slight, we mustfool of hope
not say, if that’s whatthan the
150the universe thinks of us, so smartass
much for the universe:of the
it should be the benefit of oursmall and mean
experience here to realize trash
the just groundwork
155of marvelous devising, feeling,
touching, tasting, looking,
beauty’s unbelievable contrary
Here I Sit, Fifty in the
Here I sit, fifty in the
mid-seventies, the 28th of the 9th, cedarberries
160reddening a veil, vine leapage
and leafage red or yellow flame tips in the trees,
the sky mixed
after pure days of rain,
coolishness and windyishness, most
165birds gone,
hi-flo hieroglyphic geese going over,
a day and decade like most any other
if you put in the wind, sun,
believe the brook’s fuss,
170trees nodding, yessireeing,
the mixture of identifiable hunks of
historicity with permanences and continuos
like geese stringing singings,
the clash and intermingling
175within the boundaries of the momentary
and instantaneous of the
perception of the, ah,
all the wavelengths of time, ah, bending in
& out of themselves like coil worms
180or worm coils
byways and sideways
forth and back
outsight and inlook
(in a time of)
185failing powers, physical,
sexual, intellectual, artistic,
belleslettristic, optimistic, etc.,
it’s hard (a hair firm)
to keep the slant of the curvature
190above horizontal coelum
without bobbing and dozy dipping
below
into the languorous waters of letting
things take their course & get on by:
195no use to wait on you today
nohow, baby, because with the fallings
off of spatiotemporal apples and leaves
and seeds and pods
and skinnyings up for winter, in the
200and because, ah, of the apple cider and
aster honey and the blue glaze on the
brook slowed distillation-column clear
and the yellowjackets
hummed up quiet in the
205stump
waiting for snow to feather to the door
hard to think of going back into spring,
buds, slender parts, sprigs putting
out, early green and preparation,
210then summer filling out, making up,
might as well rush right on through into
ripeness rotten
where like summation or artistic
compression
215seeds velvety in the dried-up pulp
summarize recommencement, time’s compression
would, some will say, there were
a plain simple thing with a fence round it
I don’t know it seems
220possible don’t you think plausible a
bit plausible
or perhaps a few
plain simple things with small fences
you say around them
225a cluster or lay-out of them
> organized to cardinal points or rated,
axiologically
rated
according to
230I cut the quince down the other day into so
many stalks it all made a big bundle
upon the lawn high as my head I’d say
but then today I took the pile
thorny limb by branch down to
235the limb&branch pile in the bottom yard
I don’t care I think for quince, the
thorns, I mean, I am pricked and itchy
here and there including the shanks
some branches got to in the carrying
240off well so back and forth which is up
and down (the yard) I went forty times
I think till I began to sweat and stink
and there under the pear tree was a dead
jay, poor thing, which stank in a stream of
245whiff which I hit eighty times,
the universal smell of rotten meat not
really an attractive smell when you get
right down to it. . . .
I do not, can not, will not
250care for plain simple things
with straightforward fences round them:
I prefer lean, true
integrations of ongoing
with recurrences,
255resemblances, half-adventitious or fortuitous
or as some would say accidental,
half-accidental,
not under a third
a live jay lit on the pearlimb (pearl imb)
260over the dead jay,
looked down and flicking shrieked & squawked
directly into the dead ear
two minutes (I don’t insist
on the meaning, only the facts)
265a scolding for dying
or grief trying to make itself heard;
it looked like grief’s rage,
a protest like revenge,
grief’s blue wings and bright cries!
270money can’t buy happinessneither one nor the other
happiness can’t buy moneyeither one or the other
(misery can’t buy either) both (misery loves company)
hark! in my across-and-down-the-street
neighbor’s yard, his apple grove all loaded
275with red half-rotten apples
smelling good and souring the wind,
a mockingbird singing!
I saw three majestic weeds of ragweed
growing in the ditch and
280slipped’em right up out
of the mud and turned their roots onto
the macadam to dry
this part is called
the old Intimidation Rag
285it is never right to play ragtime fast
it is never right to play ragtime
it is never right to play
it is never right to
it is never right
290it is never
it is
it
surface amenities aside
we have little to
295go on
except violence and brutality (the long, flat light
of this bright day comes slicing through)
may lovewords strip
and least a man’s bones
300harm
prevail at
times forevernaked
My Father Used to Bring Banana
My father used to bring banana
stalks home from town
305and place them in the chicken coop
so chicken mites would stick
to them
& a few years ago we had
a flare-up in the local
310papers here about feeding layers
crushed oyster shells
to thicken egg shells
forty years ago in Carolina
we used to
315bring home a towsack full
of oyster shells every time we went
to the beach
and we had this big old anvil and
big old hammer to
320beat up the oyster shells with
I don’t know what became
of the roosters
that ate them
broke out an
325extra set of teeth
my father sure was a mess
this part of my poem is
called chicken (gravy, shit, wing, liver)
sometimes I notice my
330shadow and think
there’s my father
but I’m fifty now
and it’s me
Have You Seen the Severe Waters
Have you seen the severe waters
335(how they flow)
have you seen the nodes of high
glass standing or the sharp slants
by the bank where the bank looks for
itself
340 I care not what is isit’s up
what is seems is is to you
enough for me
I went to the brook and inquired
what do I have now
345how do you mean the bank bushes replied
oh I said
oh I said
and the brook broke saying speak up
so the saying of that day was not
350said and the turn that might have been
added to the mind turned away
clear all day the foliage
coloring etc. the jay loud
the mockingbird still at it
355thickage
Early October
Early October,
fally, papery, yellowy,
watery, raggedy, high
skimmy clouds, brooky
360(last week’s rains,
now run off, brookly,
cool glass flowing,
metal over slate sweeps)
I’m at fifty Octobery,
365not frantic with commencements,
preparations, seedings, searchings
for ways of spring and not
the rage of
summer, clumpy fulfillingness,
370but a throwing of the self out
of gear into gliding’s mild astonishment,
letting up into freefall on
rise’s other side,
the leaves still green or
375holding hints hang,
no longer feeding on light,
an indifference to purpose,
purpose complete, now
color and high view:
380inner purpose given over,
other purposes not one’s own start to
clear the stage:
nothing to dwell on, astonishment right
into startled grief,
385the rising of settled knowledge that
in a short time all here will
clear and go
why speak of that now,
the pears
390hard green after frost’s first smart
and the apples
purple-ruddy, burnt onesided:
still one pauses
to reflect shallow bemusements,
395recall honey,
the inner light of wine,
cold’s tang and burn
(good as ever but not as often)
Terror of
terror of
400interval
(even with
bridge-note reassurance) the slicing
away into
(dentaljuice)*
405depthless discontinuity, whorey bottom
or bottomless horrid,
too many intervals break up
the road
the sinuous continuous look
410out for slides land snow rock
tree blows freshets bridge-outs
neck wires
hair ties
sorghum broomcane braided
415(vines’ rising risks) down
to handles
log planters
nothing necklaces
cowtooth dangles
420I’m in the swamp I
must have followed
the hogs off
awkweird to go to bed with the
chickens and wake up laid
Ivy, a Winding)
425Ivy, a winding)
an area, specimen one can keep
coming back to,
a place where, as to school, one can
try out one’s explanations
430(exegesis is better than no gesis at
all) but
what
got me
aboutgive
435theup
tree
today
was that
the leaves
440after a season’s
service, their span, serve
fallen: flatten out black
and limber wet and put a film of
chitinous structure on the
445ground so nothing
not even a winding vine, can come up and
take nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water, or
room from the tree:
(they say walnut shells
450falling to the ground
release an antiplant
ingredient) imagine!
writing something that never forms a
complete thought, drags you
455after it, spills you down, no barrier
describing you or dock lifting you up:
imagine writing something the CIA would
not read, through,
the FBI not record or report,
460a mishmash for the fun-loving,
one’s fine-fannied friends!
imagine, a list, a
puzzler, sleeper, a tiresome business,
conglomeration, aggregation, etc.
465nobody can make any sense of:
a long poem, shindig,
fracas, uproar,
high shimmy uncompletable, hence like
paradise, hellish paradise,
470not the one paradise where the points
& fringes of
perception sway in and out at once
in the free interlockings of
permanence: