by A. R. Ammons
nothing coming through in beam from
the east
2300the hemlocks rocked and
winded yesterday
hold their old darkness back today
to have fun you have to need it
so little you don’t need any
2305you fear the graveif you won’t
so much it ischange yourself change
possible before life isthe world
done with you you
will beg for itchange the world you
2310won’t change yourself
this year’s been
so horrible even the
thought
of improving it
2315is frightening
then the sifting thins into a sheen of
micro-lights, pane crystal flints,
twinkling down like fog-fuzzy bugs through
beams of early sun,
2320derived not from clouds but a haze
that barely pales the sky
weather is continuo to the clustral or choral
the deep through-going that adds a middle
to islands, glaciers, ponds, fields, woods,
2325to rain, or snow, or wind or
the sun’s weather is
continuo
to earth and Mars and
elsewhere
2330or the galaxy’s (here we go again) shine is
continuo
within which gather and move chords,
concerts, aggregates, configurations,
tangles, thickets
2335which in turn turning feed into and move the
continuo:
clapper-hung bulls tinkling bells
balls on icy highweed
spot of marsh there
2340in the meadow
cattails and redwings
artesian source
a bog going
around saved
2345the tree-mingling mists
on the high gap’s ridge
seem not a nature
my self, too, inhabits, brushing up
against the rockface,
2350leaking from boughs
but another dimension, intention, or
working that asks neither my
compliance nor participation
buried yesterday afternoon
2355today Uncle Emory
begins his first
full day in
the grave, the
whole round of
2360the dark service,
the wageless hours
and hourless wages
but what a brilliant
finish to the snowstorm
2365(another due tonight)
so much sun I sat with the jade
plant half an hour
while sheaves of brightness
fell across its deep leaves
2370and, eighteen the high, here and
there direct light caused icicles
to form out of hung snow,
the ridge on my
metal mailbox turned into a single
2375long icicle, dog’s tail
Analysis Mines and Leaves to Heal
Analysis mines and leaves to heal
clouds, coasts along the way but comes
to recourse’s nothingness to heal itself
during the night
2380the wind pulled
up a cloud cover
patchworks
apronsmy wife says
hotpadsyou can’t learn
2385place matsmagic by magic
skirts
lunch bags
intercourse is better than no course at all
hardly able to take a frail wind
2390or thin change in altitude or
attitude, we measure riffles,
waves, ounces, vibes for power,
scrupulous tissue
axioms, postulates, theorems, hypotheses,
2395hypotenuses, conclusions, paradigms in
neat blue conic sections, curved lines, dots,
lines, and planes, cubes, prisms, cylinders,
spheres, all that good stuff
temperature goes up, snow falls:
2400break out the stars,
cold shines them: stir up a southern breeze,
here come the windchillindex
here, indeed, we’re eating dead chicken (stuffed with
stuffing) cranberry sauce, applesauce,
2405white potatoes, broccoli, salad with
dressing including one dark olive, cookies
and ice (dark olive how I luf you) cream
and cake and the snow outside coming down
Snowed Last Night a Lot but Warmed Up
Snowed last night a lot but warmed up:
2410today has been cloudy
unsnowing and up to 40 maybe 45:
icicles have dived off eaves:
the hemlocks
which keep fine clumps
2415are unsnowed
tipsy with breeze
I got a plant collection
for Christmas, jars, cups, liqueur & other glasses,
potted and planted,
2420but I’m doing tiny plants
I like my loyalty
and their precariousness
the big round yew
has five thick floes
2425indoor greenof snow on top
too central
to angle off, fall
away
the maple’s fleshy underlimbs look spooky,
2430more light bounding up from the
snow than falling from the gray near-dusk:
I shoveled
wet-bottomed snow out to
the garage, where I got the peat moss,
2435then out into the yard
where I dug soil
from John’s old sandlot
soil mixed about half with sand
that half and half with peat moss:
2440then I dribbled bits
into my finestemmed glasses
and reluctant jars
poured dabs of water in
to settle the roots
2445and left them to heaven
Those in Ledge Fright Seek
Those in ledge fright seek
the complacencies of the high Way
for who
given the apple of life
2450wants a different sweetness
low marsh
where water heads or sulls
is common but
high holdings,
2455marsh lofts, prevented into height,
kept where all that can run runs,
high marsh,
sedge, weed, grass, tiny flower!
snow upside down and/or backwards spells
2460mons, the
mountainous part where snow falls
gniwolp wons
one of the wons
with herbicides, pesticides,
2465the penetration, saturation become
systemic, what for us,
the children of Mithridates’srun, the end is
poison pricknarrowing in for
a close, the saying
2470midroad and midway the Wayis gaining
change, disturbance’s daily loss,concision to
shock, grief,slash and slashing
looks illusoryslash itself off
but the world’s vanishing as we
2475stand tiptoe at the rim of
a world never to come
water runs
but the ripple
dwells
But If the Way Will
2480But if the Way will
not answer common feet,
we hack through thickets,
winding vine-nodes, and
befuddling treebranching
2485offshooting
divisions that divide us
bringing no lessening to
the investigated material
but
if like the emu we
2490cannot fly we can
run fast or while we scramble up
fright’s sharp ledge we can
contemplate the skyWay,
treetopless, hightensionlineless,
2495peakless, stormcloudless
but who would be there except
as relief from here
here the pond muscles in a flash,
cracks, sprinkles, circles and
2500produces a disengaged item,
shining fish
delicious simmering
freedom, freedom
some people think it’s going
2505to stop snowing
someday
today glazed because it went up
to 45 yesterday: stuff
melted and ran, and last night went
2510down to twenty or twenty-five:
the motion slowed, piling up, slowing,
then stopped into slick hard terrain:
today not having gone above
twenty-five, crystal-drawn
2515configurations, tire figurings, dry,
crunchy, are holding tight: now, forty minutes
past sundown, the dark evergreens
fall away in a white sea, clouds
above, behind, between,
2520only a shade lighter than
the trees:
all day the sun found two blurs
to come through, each a few seconds
wide: people who have a life
2525to live don’t notice weather: the rest
of us study it like a feast, eating
the windshifts and coolings,
the details, main shows,
fringe events, chewing and wolfing:
2530who dines on clouds, drinks
the wind, gets loose mouthfuls, has
for fanfare stripped willows and
grumpy hemlocks:outriders
not regular, he should
2535address himself to the center
folds, vertical drapes, entryways
wherein to go straight: it is
one thing to tongue pussy and another
thing not to: well said, nature
2540lover: less polluted these
days than acid wind or leady sleet:
the future
“let’s come and eat”will carefully
husband and
2545Dallas at Minnesotadraw out
strands of
I hope dianthus that throughthe natural
platycodon simple engagement hesperisto weave the
with diverse lychnis materialitycontrolled
2550I calendula will be ableartificial
ageratum to wipe dusty
miller the shitty salvia
grin off my cockscomb faceI need a
constellation
2555where all lose, oneto set a
must study gain, move intofew sharp
herd-appraisal and praise, announcestones in
energy and direction,
not slouch behind
2560tempting wild animals:
the business is serious
but wipes away,
chalk on slate, the scribbling
powdery: hunger, greed, fear,
2565anger write themselves out
through and with things,
then dissolve,
the things themselves also
I carry an extra
2570pouch on the hip, around
the neck, over the shoulder
it’s awkward and burdensome,
in it a piece
of paper
2575with the heaviest
directive
find
something to save
us, if
2580not a lot, a little
(tell us, at least, there
is no equivocation between
necessity and necessity)
or if
2585you can find nothing to
save us,
cheer us up
or give us a good rubdown
or put us after a problem
2590worth pursuing
the admiration of can-do
the basic structure
out of its holster,
admired, received—this
2595enlarged and multiplied
into aspects of day
hello from one who knows nothing
(and never lets you hear
the end of it)
The Sun Climbs Daily Higher
2600The sun climbs daily higher
into a longer arc:
lows ride
thaws in from
the south for a day or so
2605but the
long summer dissolve and making
this daily increment unfolds and cinches
that Ithat’s what II have to do some
take ittake it itlight writing
2610is whattakesso I can do some
it takeslight reading
taking thought
poets add
obscurity
2615to the
inexplicable
for critics
who can’t
get their
2620tools sharp on
the obvious
A Seventeen Morning &
A seventeen morning &
the maple, lit below,
looks as if it’s
2625in pearl fire
the high-luminous snow
catching every branch
I may change rooms
because I can’t see
2630the main subject
from here
I can’t continue
to proceed indirectly:
in the other room I wd
2635be able
to see a frowzy jay light in
it (my subject)
or watch a winter wind
whistle it
2640or behold the coming & going
of snow leaves,
nature-witnessing,
attention-getting poetry
all the fit that’s news to print
2645what’s a sphere: (you ask)
a nucleus
prowled by circumferences:
a moon or sun
or asteroid, orange, tangelo,
2650grapefruit, or
two selves or sexes
clustral: a mere
bead, seed, marble, an
irreducibility gathered
2655about itself, or a
radial awareness, more
blocked off on one side than
the other but about
as fluid and penetrating in
2660rock as air: awe or ire:
clearly the question is what
one does from there: the
spiral drills a more
majestic form, centralizing
2665spheres, binaries, clumps,
arms and windings into
vast discs turning but more
open to variety on the
edge than spheres, a malleability
2670outward to diversity:
moving to sweet heaps as of
rocks or garbage in spill:
every lawn,
sandy path effects, influences
2675the weather: every bush’s
held-air temple,
cooler or warmer or more or
less humid: every fringe
of bank grass alters the
2680wind’s rill,
spill, the way
thunderstorms roil white-ice
high with stricken
majesty: I
2685know how things go one
way and then the other
without separation, tenacity
continuous throughout
the measure: I
2690know how the big wind falls,
the winds of hollows,
thickets, ponds
adding or subtr
acting huff
or lag, easing or blocking,
2695lofting or snatching down:
clear progressions and puzzling
intermixtures: so much
stability or quiet change in
fantasies of motion: wind vane,
2700rain gage, barometer . . .
1look at2look at
the peoplethe people
in thein the
graveyardgraveyard
2705theythe
don’t seem tosweet north wind
mind
3look at4look at
the peoplethe people
2710in thein the
graveyardgraveyard
unfailinga cardinal
attractionsingly singing
5look at6look at
2715the peoplethe people
in thein the
graveyardgraveyard
memorydisturb the
slipspeace
27207look at8look at
the peoplethe people
in thein the
graveyardgraveyard
stone recallswhen dawn comes
2725lastno one stirs
9look at10look at
the peoplethe people
in thein the
graveyardgraveyard
2730shadequiet
treescelebration
fucking forefront
rump humper
bang spangler
2735wart wrestler
butt fuckershoot the breeze
people who worry about
belly wormerthings have something
crawdadhopperto worry about
2740spider spitter
I have behind enough but
kitty corneredsuffer from foreshortening
cattywompus
cattybiarsoned
2745diagram of eclipse
paradigm of ruin
figure of flood
bustnut of wind
sketches, fit-ups for
2750the cataclysm
name and number (my culture agriculture)
sense decays when it moves too
far toward statement, concept,
abstraction, or theory where
2755generalization, synopsis, or
summary has taken on wide
prevalence but left
behind, or digested away, any