The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1

by A. R. Ammons

  The Perfect Journey Is

  3730The perfect journey is

  no need to go

  another nothingly clear day and

  I went

  to walk between the pine

  3735colonnades

  up the road on the hill and there

  hill-high in dry cold

  I saw the weaves of glitterment

  airborne, so fine,

  3740the breeze sifting

  figurations from the snow

  reservoirs of the boughs

  Snow of the

  Snow of the

  right consistency,

  3745temperature, and

  velocity will

  fall in a lee

  slope

  building out over

  3750space a

  promontory of

  considerable

  reach in

  downward curvature:

  3755and snow

  will do this

  not once

  but wherever possible,

  a similarity of effect

  3760extended

  to diversity’s

  exact numeration

  . . .

  here a month of snow,

  3765more January than

  February, intervenes

  during which

  I wrote

  nothing: it is

  3770the winter-deep, the

  annual sink:

  leave it unwritten,

  as snow unwrites

  the landscape

  3775. . .

  The Prescriptive Stalls As

  The prescriptive stalls as

  to when to take effect:

  the admonishment loses the

  color of certainty: the

  3780recommendation lies down like

  a mule and rolls in the sand:

  the traders arrive with their

  incredible auctioneer and

  commence to squabble

  3785and at the end of the day

  nothing has been sold or

  bought: in having found no

  imbalance into a way out

  as yet, an imbalance that

  3790throws the leaves and

  hangings of imbalance into

  balance, I stand for

  whatever will not come round

  or be whole

  3795or made out or reduced:

  here breakdown allows

  the small solution to

  operate on the local problem:

  this morning I got up early

  3800and took the wetsack off my

  foot, toe healing:

  I went down and

  turned up the heat, so

  everybody could get up warm,

  3805then I made coffee, cooked

  an egg, had toast:

  it was glorious enough:

  but anyhow the man said it

  will truly go to fifty today:

  3810it’s already 30: when all

  the hills’ holdings and the

  trees’ and ridges’ loosen and

  commence to trickle or

  slide, gouge out and roar,

  3815we may have a thaw

  disturbance, that aspect

  to happiness and warmth:

  I hope it will take on

  slow-moving

  3820•

  or after shoals of selloffs,

  options, shorts, long-terms,

  after heavy-risk purchases

  and quick turnovers, the

  3825unspeakable auctioneer having

  fed in his energy and taken

  his toll, there at the day’s

  end is my portion: crust:

  I just got back from the

  3830University: so many

  matters of great interest and

  no moment:

  but in the moment the general

  world assigns,

  3835the special person, the

  one taking the brunt,

  finds the ultimate explosion:

  a former student, now

  representing a book publisher,

  3840stops by: he is engaged:

  soandso calls that soandso

  will not keep the appointment

  because her father has died:

  soandso left her dog

  3845at home shut up

  because he runs after

  bitches and winds up

  in the pound:

  a University writes offering

  3850me a job: one who

  wants to apply for the job

  won’t get it:

  the turn of the day:

  the spill, waterfall, shed:

  3855impossible to make

  any version

  (perversion better than no

  version at all)

  adequate to the circumstance:

  3860one enlarges the scope

  and increases the fill-in:

  deepens, dumps, delineates

  the fill-in:

  who or what is watching over

  3865the waterfall (the waterfallwatcher)

  where the

  spill picks up, the urgencywe can be okay

  takes on muscle and speed,socially and

  the fast overshoot withknow that the

  3870giddy, weightless fall,same moral laws

  and the splintering disturbanceare operating

  against bottom, rock, water:as before, as

  things pick up, of course,usual, and still

  from there and go on in a newgrind crudely at

  3875mildness but strange setting:the circular

  some things pass intoedge between

  unrecognizable strangeness:human and natural

  is no one watching, oflaw, one harmony

  course not,not disclosing

  3880not even a gentle, universalhow it

  principle with a calming circularity, meshes with

  a soft persuader reminding usanother

  of the marvels, the highharmony

  concerns and yearnings over

  3885us, the realms luminous our

  understanding

  need only bend for comfort to:

  are we here, single things,

  lifted up into clarity and

  3890recognition

  by the same powers and forces

  to be struck down, the calm

  coasting going quite on beyond

  us: or is it here precisely

  3895that sleeve enters sleeve

  so we see the interpenetrations,

  to live to die, not to

  die not to live, this is

  the motif, announcement,

  3900deep conditioner, the knowledge

  from which there is no

  freedom and no freedom

  except in the knowledge,

  the hardest, most bitter

  3905schooling beauty and decay

  could have devised,

  allowing, though, ironic sweets

  highest invention is humbled by:

  one is helpless: one weeps:e

  3910terror raves beyond the tear:q

  one is without help:u

  and then one sees or recallsa

  that on the balance line betweenn

  purchases and payoffsi

  3915indifference looks neither thisl

  way nor that:

  our help is the call of

  indifference that says

  come where there is no

  3920need of help

  and have all the help you need:

  so we rock (and roll) between gratitude

  and terror (burns the cheek)

  so we commend ourselves to

  3925what is to be and what must be

  so we celebrate dome’s day, the

  big theatre, we came to see

  and so we quail

  at show’s end, the going back

  3930into forgotten dark,

&nb
sp; the stripping off of illusion’s privileges:

  the sleep beyond the

  edge of the deepest sleep

  •

  3935my fears of the

  piling up of too

  much fluency

  in high-rise temperature were,

  I think, ill-founded

  3940for though the radio says it is

  now 42

  the drips from the garage eaves

  slow winter down:

  you could write a sonnet

  3945between one drop and the next

  •

  insecurity of registration in

  a terrain measures the

  potential, that susceptible

  3950to disposition or re-disposition,

  but to the extent that potential is pure

  potential, with not a skimming

  of announcement or definition,

  it is nothing, who needs

  3955potential: and yet who does

  not, not need “give”, border

  or boundary stone

  relocateable: if you could,

  for example, set poetry off

  3960into 10 orders of this and

  that, subsidiary systems spelled out, lifted into

  interpenetrative connection

  with what is perceived to be,

  you could call it preserved

  3965territory, a public or private

  garden, identity certain:

  but poetry resists this, yielding to erosion,

  horse manure, bird droppings,

  pine needles, the wind, moss,

  3970bracket, bract, stone of change,

  a troublesome, marvelous garden:

  fertility inexhaustible, a milling:

  After the Dissolve

  After the dissolve,

  under cedars and black and blue

  3975spruce,

  hemlock thickets,

  crescents of coverless

  ground where

  if pheasant eat grass

  3980pheasant can

  plick chilly uprights of

  green grass

  or sort through the

  vegetal remains, rubble for seed or

  3985seed-like knobs,

  clusters, or pods, roots, or

  whatever

  contributes generating to

  the possible: but now

  3990my class over for today

  traces of white airiness

  mean-sprinkling are expanding

  into hard lightness

  again, temperature falling,

  3995new snow on old

  melt-rinsed-to-ice snow

  limited visibility

  yield ahead

  yield

  4000stop

  frost heaves

  merging traffic

  at most dusk

  bill of goodsthe ringneck

  4005deepdown cleanas if reluctant

  I saw enoughto fly up to roost

  of the realwalks about

  to flee andon the meltshade

  found enough unrealunder the cedar,

  4010to return tohis feet on the

  see the realground for the first

  time since midDec: he walks elegantly,

  slowly, now and then bends

  to peck:

  4015of course, he sleeps

  on warm legs and feet

  but all day every day he’s

  snow-plopping barefooted:

  scouring ugliness

  4020and bathing beauty

  my friend thedrover

  poet is nooversold

  longer attractedoversoul

  to anylover

  4025center of whichmover

  he is notshover

  the attraction

  A Sift, Sprinkling, or Veil

  A sift, sprinkling, or veil

  of snow came

  4030last evening sun after dusk

  but ended soon:

  today, though, is bright!

  I got up at 6:30 to turn up

  the heat and the

  4035east was brightening: oh,

  I said, the sun may come up

  this morning and now it is

  bursting pointblank against

  the thicket

  Structureless Rage, Perhaps

  4040Structureless rage, perhaps,

  pure energy of motion, volition, lies

  alongside or moves under

  and upfloats appetite: blah, blah:

  an energy that we should haveone with no

  4045been put here among these community has

  bounties and possibilities,only the world

  crippled with these walls and

  spoons:

  rage then flares into fear

  4050that resentment has destroyed

  our chances with the good

  makings, the father dispraised:

  it is a circumstance

  medicine cannot surround or

  4055work preservingly to the core

  of: we must be and be

  destroyed at once: rage and

  love, fear and love, these

  work themselves

  4060out so that we become

  accredited lovers and fearers

  with no loss to either wing:

  with no cancellation into

  boredom or indifference:

  4065harsh: harsh: with the

  fate-like calm acceptance

  that no other mix could keep this stir:

  in a bush’s

  fine division

  4070the sparrow lights free

  from the hawk’s broad shoulder:

  tie one on:

  another matter:

  there is not

  4075at the momenty

  one single flakee

  of snow ona

  the garage roof:

  a warm day again up to 45,

  4080good old February

  and there are wide circles

  of dark ground under evergreens

  and oblongs and funny

  strung-out clustral darknesses

  4085under groves, along hedges,

  the woods in untouched natural color

  but it’s gray again

  (it’s gray again

  like clay again!)

  4090uyyllggu ugyu lygl

  glugyuly yllgguuy

  Tell What Will Not Tell Direct

  Tell what will not tell direct

  encompassingly:

  the bindings of avoidance

  4095gather terrain

  manysided and cushioning,

  should the direct route of

  the direct saying emerge,

  should the furrows of

  4100circumference, hills

  and dells, the wild,

  off-the-mark talk,

  lead to the very place unspoken

  standing out where the stand

  4105must be taken,

  avoiding avoidance

  go out of your

  out of your

  way to help

  4110others

  help others

  but watch it what you raise into

  strength may suspect you of

  strength withheld and raid you

  4115down and out loose, windy

  since before day

  and all day

  the wind’s rolled billows across

  us, the soundlessness,

  4120rising roar, crash,weave is what it is:

  muffling, suckingno matter the wisdom,

  against the houseperception: the truth,

  and thisyes, but only because

  with the sky gray gray asattendance to truth

  4125before as usualenlarges complexity:

  well but even so it’s goodbut is one wave of the

  weather for Februaryweave balanced by an

  equal & opposite: that

  great weather’sis important: is


  4130destruction, though:everything stressed but

  the blue dry highin its proper place:

  radiant inanitionis consideration

  shrinks brooks to crispobserved in the

  routesdispositions: not an

  4135burns grassailing net but

  upholds dustadequate weave

  find reality

  find duplicity

  two bows of a single knot

  4140my feelings are caught

  gauze in a strong wash

  with the prevailing snow

  and full moon

  nothing prowls through here

  4145at night

  without prowling declarations

  raccoon prissy

  used sway

  Spread It Thin

  Spread it thin

  4150zip it in

  give me a ring

  go back up for a lay

  (better laid than never or up)

  today continues the tropical

  4155extravaganza—up to 45,

  the circle of under-cedar melt having

  widened halfway across the

  yard and the pheasant pecking here &

  there significantly

  4160an interim free of spring

  madness and summer dangers

  a protectorate of warmth

  midway winter’s wars

  bees body cells of the animal, hive

  4165today you couldn’t get a sprig

  of hemlock to wiggle

  where yesterday

  bounding sloped green

  surfs

  4170permanent as breaking

  entanglements: when the wind

  does not arrange to have

  tongue, much is tongueless,

  as great distance

  Dark Day, Warm and Windy

  4175Dark day, warm and windy,

  light breaking through

  clouds

  coloring the sides of tall

  furrows, thaw decaying

  4180snow, the wind stirring

  time up to a rush, I come home

  from work midmorning

  dark with contemplations,

  that the infant finds

  4185his hand unopened

  and the old man forgets

  his has closed—that rondure:

  I sit down at the piano

  and try the “Fuga 1” in The