Stills
–A.R. Ammons
I have nowhere
to go andnowhere to go
when I get
back from there.
Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash
Stills
–A.R. Ammons
I have nowhere
to go andnowhere to go
when I get
back from there.
Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash
One Composing
–A.R. Ammons
Love Song
–A.R. AmmonsLike the hills under dusk you
fall away from the light:
you deepen: the green
light darkens
and you are nearly lost:
only so much light as
stars keep
manifests your face:
the total night in
myself raves
for the light along your lips.
Windy Trees
–A.R. Ammons
Photo by Sneha Cecil on Unsplash
Then One
–A.R. Ammons
Photo by Ross Sneddon on Unsplash
The Shoreless Tide
–A.R. Ammons
Photo by Alejo Storni on Unsplash
Consignee
–A.R. Ammons
This Black Rich Country
–A.R. AmmonsDispossess me of belief:
between life and me obtrude
no symbolic forms:grant me no mission: let my
mystical talents be beasts
in dark trees: thin the wireI limp in space, melt it
with quick heat, let me walk
or fall alone: failme in all comforts:
hide renown behind the tomb:
withdraw beyond all reach of faith:leave me this black rich country,
uncertainty, labor, fear: do not
steal the rewards of my mortality.
Photo by Filip Zrnzević on Unsplash
Finishing Up
–A.R. Ammons
I wonder if I know enough to know what it’s really like
to have been here: have I seen sights enough to give
seeing over: the clouds, I’ve waited with white
October clouds like these this afternoon often before andtaken them in, but white clouds shade other white
ones gray, had I noticed that: and though I’ve
followed the leaves of many falls, have I spent time with
the wire vines left when frost’s red dyes strip the leavesaway: is more missing than was never enough: I’m sure
many of love’s kinds absolve and heal, but were they passing
rapids or welling stirs: I suppose I haven’t done and seen
enough yet to go, and, anyway, it may be way on the waybefore one picks up the track of the sufficient, the
world-round reach, spirit deep, easing and all, not just mind
answering itself but mind and things apprehended at once
as one, all giving all way, not a scrap of question holding back.
Photo by Banter Snaps on Unsplash
81
–A.R. Ammons
trust no one: there is not a shred of loyalty
that will not yield to advantage or change ofcircumstance: when you do what you’re supposed
to do and others do what they’re supposed todo, trust is not called for: (the point,
actually is to foray for aye – and not toyield): (you know how wide the universe is;
we can blow off a few spots and nothingever missing): oh, foller the dollar, it knows
the way: dam the way up, so the dollars getout of hand in mounds, deep chests, and long
keepings, moldy trusts: put your dollars towork: and stay home yourself: if you don’t
have two dollars, start with one: pretty soonyou’ll be sitting around thinking of all the
things money can’t buy: (it is important tonote that all states are miserable: the only
joy is in thinking it desirable to get fromone to the other, state, I mean: California
is the best state, because you can’t get toanother state that way, so your misery can
turn into the delights of imagining an East:oh, the tricky land of the luck-strewn East,
the painted temples scribbled and scrolledso amply as to allow the falling out of the
farthest personal chance, number: let’s see:what other moralizing can I do, orders give,
prayers urge – all unimaged, unexampled:(take Long San Temple, for example, the
dolphins yin and yang circling the center,a floridity of dragons (florality?) entertwining
the outside of the circle, the inside of theoctagon): Shakespeare, heightening artifice,
renaturalizes nature…