by A. R. Ammons
tale of us, even if of a few, so strikingly
revelatory that all of us known and unknown
will become largely re-known—our makeup,
our meanings so similar that to tell of one of
4360us will do for all: even when we try to slip
in and out undetected we can trip and leave
a mark: our wills, wherever we turn them,
seldom come up with satisfactory results,
unless, of course, we expected the worst
95
4365these are the longest days, the sixteen-hour
daylights, the quick sleeps, so many hours to
potter away and putter about: the baby robins
are nearly grown, though still aflutter to feed
and the nasturtium bucket swung from a crabapple
4370branch is round with bloom (but using lots of
water): mock orange snows its way out of a
thicket, and the laurel is so sprung with
flicky rain-soaked bloom, I go out and shake
it dry to prevent a split: of course, the
_________
4375timber rattlers and other shakes are out, as
well (to erect the classic teeter-totter) as
mangoes, nectarines, avocados, pears, plums,
cantaloupes, strawberries, asparagus, many
items trucked in: what a country: nature—
4380nice, not nice, neither: both: God’s in His
heaven, but not all is right with the world:
the nest’s foul, befouled: the planet’s
riddled, stink flows down the mighty rivers;
dirty water climbs sores up the children’s
4385legs: the orb, the dulled shiner: we cast it
aside, sucked dry: palpability, palpability,
that is the artists’ realm: I’m really not a
palpabilitist: seeing into the nature of the
apple explodes its skin, mystifies the sweet:
4390I want to see how things work: I want to
stand in awe of origins: oh, I have something
to tell that I thought of yesterday: I apologize
for the loss of immediacy spontaneity might
have stirred: and doubly apologize for the
4395cement of lugubriousness that hardens around
the reconsidered: (is this hilarious, or
what?): well, I mean, what I was getting at
is the closeness with which some polar opposites
are married: for example, that truth is error:
4400(isn’t that a riot?): for when you select
_________
from reality widely surveyed the appropriate
stuff from which to form an assertion, axiom,
affirmation or other muscled manifestation,
you have left behind so much unformed stuff
4405that your truth is drowned in inopportuneness:
in other words, the road you is on is too
slender to measure the landscape: truths, though,
can be passing views, as of strange bushes
by the culverts, or horrifying bumps in the
4410mattress: I should have written this down
yesterday (it works for words, sentences,
objects, decisions, etc.) but I was on the
road to the outrageous dentist: the insight
is trivial enough, but I regret the loss of
4415the freshness
96
what will time, if time alone will tell, tell:
will the sound of telling soothe, and will the
substance agree: will shrieks of alarm break
out of the pacifications: or will the sounds
4420work their way down becalmed: how many times,
round so many rocks, the brook water narrows
and ruffles before it gets away, reaches the
lake’s undulant mirror: water then flows
through water, unlike the frail insect, caught
4425inside, trying at the window to fly through
_________
pane glass: a buzz so moderate it can’t be
heard, like the death of a friend on a
snow slope with the fields cracking crisp, ice
ice: and dark coming: a rising wind slitting
4430sleet up the chasms
97
when I’m interviewed I tell the wide-open
truth, because if I defend myself, my defense
will become noticeable and that in itself will
open up what I’m defending: so I just answer
4435the questions spontaneously and without
reservation, and this leaves me soundly
unsounded; I mean, inscrutable: I want to be
inscrutable because there are many things
about me I do not wish to reveal and saying
4440everything hides them: (an old person in his
dotage, I am likely to attempt only what is
unlikely to be likely, thus losing my
incompetence in the lost cases): we stopped
by the Farmers’ Market in Syracuse this
4445morning, and the front due to arrive from the
Northwest bringing southwest winds, somehow,
hadn’t arrived—or was still pushing the cold
front before it—anyway, I didn’t have on an
_________
undershirt under my summer shirt, and I was
4450cold, cold out among the geraniums, radishes
called white lightning, plums, pears, onions,
strawberries (for a week more), but I noticed
the people, mostly short and stocky, and not
pretty, so I concluded that it is not the aim
4455of humanity (or DNA) to make beautiful people
or they or it would hit the mark more often:
ugly, I mean, in the faces, and ugly bodies—
one woman, I remember so squdged down and fat,
I thought her buttocks and cunt could never come
4460unglued, and yet I thought one could be
overtaken by a brutal need to get in there and
see what it was like: well, I’ll tell you, it
was a big morning: integrity spent, I am
faithful to the changes in me
98
4465at a roadstand, in Dryden, or just outside,
where the A-frames sprawl and touch the ground
or nearly do, we stopped to look over the
watermelons, cherries (still brought in), and
the owner, sorting strawberries (the last of
4470the local season), said to me, do you know
people eat 60,000 tons of food in their
lifetime: what, I said: yeah, he said: right
_________
away, I figured out that would be 120,000,000
pounds: he was going that way, because he
4475couldn’t resist the overripe strawberries he
culled from his spilling hands: he said, you
know who the worst people are stop here: no,
I said: Cadillacs, they steal, they bitch
about the prices, cheapest bastards: you don’t
4480mean it, I say: he looks up to check out my
car, which isn’t a Caddy: lots of potted
plants, including some spindly looking,
yellowed clematis, and some shrunk-up fuchsias:
a shopper was there with his wife, and he had
4485a three-inch band on each forearm, and I said
to him, pardon me, sir, I hope you don’t mind
if I ask what the arm bands are for: tendonitis
he said, I’ve had them on for two years:
I have to stop jerking and lifting stuff: &
4490then a man drove up and parked right in the
middle of the driveway, locking the other cars
on both sides in: he walked right off as
if
he had noticed nobody: we shouldn’t worry so
much about consciousness as unconsciousness by
4495the conscious: eczema, noxzema, and psoriasis
NOTHING CAN HOLD UP NOTHING, IT REALLY
CAN
99
I asked C.A. what she thought about, no, what
she believed in: she said, etiquette: that’s
4500like good conduct and not necessarily some
stilted ceremonialism: but if, as C.A. says,
we just behaved properly many of our social
programs (at taxpayer expense) would be 86’d:
as one, myself, who believes that good conduct
4505should unwind along the lines of individual
liberty and responsibility (that is, with least
governmental oversight—unnecessary in a polite
world)—computers could collect the taxes, but
if we could get everybody in the world mannerly
4510we wouldn’t even need defense, so what would be
the use of collecting taxes, just idle money,
or money that could be thrown around for people
who don’t have any to pick up (not, no taxes
due, that they would really need any): utopia
4515comes so easy: all people need to do is to do
what I say: put Laotse in bed with Confucius,
that gives you interior impetus with external
shaping: a lovely combination, which boredom
could explode: a combination that would not
4520play in Colorado, say: two boys abed: no
taxpayer could come of that: (but human
_________
continuance has succeeded so well that we now
against our wills bend our wills to human
discontinuance; at least, a lessening of the
4525continuance from flood to brook sliver: but,
of course, we must go on fucking as usual: pity
we cannot fuck ourselves, although we can get
off ourselves: and there are vibrators and
rolling balls: something can be done: but,
4530forget it, fucking can never be the same:
imagine the earnest seeking at the womb to
keep slender and challenged human existence
going! what thrills, when work and play meet
in a single coming: what are we here for but
4535to fight for our own, to cherish our own, the
tenderness and warmth: get away: only, now,
now, we have to thin out our own, turning against
our own in order to keep our own: it was not
like this before, before when two million
4540human souls netted their paths into this
planet to try to stay and thrive: (leetle
vun, leetle vun, vair you goink now): I think
some years back men killed each other for little
clusters of women, till you would get down to
4545where you’d have one old man besides in a cave
full of women and young’uns: till, then, you
know, a man can’t fight off enemies and animals
_________
and catch animals and women by himself, he goes
out and gets him a littler man he can rule and
4550gives him a little: and that is how many of
the lowly make out and survive: yes, sir, they
watch their ass and say sir when they sposed
to: I crack my window so carpenter bees can
bore nests in the window wood, but the ivy when
4555it creeps in under the window turns around &
tries to get out—that’s because it will lead
only so far away from the light before it
dies back: hell, I know all about hell, and
the darkness: to know the darkness of the
4560dark is to know one may not survive it: turn
back to the window: get back out into the
light (but keep a sunscreen handy)—the real
light I was talking about is the rising up to
the glory of the being so full of being it has
4565closed off all, nearly all?, becoming)
GRACIOUS SAKES
100
all my life I thought a swig was a little bit,
like a taste, only wet, I mean, liquid, come
to find out it’s a whole lot, a big swaller:
4570dad blame it: I don’t know when was the last time
I got anything right:
101
I don’t care what becomes of me now, I’m
already become of: the end is clear (and
clearly dark) but getting there can be a rugged
4575road: so, undifferentiated as the end is, I
suppose I would prefer one road to another,
though they go to the same place, but way leads
on to way and you can’t tell which road you’re
on at first, they look about the same: ages
4580and ages from now, if there’s any story left
to tell there’ll be no telling what the story
is: differences can be important where it’s
hard to make out a difference: this is so
philosophical! but I better look out: I
4585might miss the road (if I don’t want to): in
any case, whey leads on to whey and pretty
soon the clabber’s all gone: I think I’ll take
a stanza break here. . . .
THE BEE MITES ARE A MIGHTY BIG PROBLEM
102
4590if results tell the story, mankind should
reexamine the story: such a bunch of characters,
bad plot: nondevelopmental theme, sensationalistic
incidents: too many people lying around in
_________
the streets: too many undernourished: too
4595many hurt spiritually: too many slaughtered
in the interest of too much unity: (I could
mount up but I’m headed the other way): my
illusions have worn so thin I can see right
through them
4600LIVER & LOIN
103
how dangerous a catchy (or wisdomy) phrase
whose brilliantly insightful narrowness could
blank out, outshining, the multiplicity of a
conditioned caution: alas, while we hunger
4605for a clear and beaming truth to settle our
perspectives down (a foundation upon which to
base a way of life, religion, or musical theory)
we need even more the muddled doubts of our
seeking: for to know is to be at an end,
4610whereas to know pretty certainly enables our
doings and leaves a hatch (an escape) open to
possibility: hark, we must get along the best
we can, so we won’t find out how to do ourselves
in: for every proverb (many proverbs) an
4615equal and opposite can be found, thereby
indicating that small truths are okay because
_________
half true: but even small truths operating in
small minds can be largely horrifying: I like
it when I bump up against somebody in the
4620morning, say at the gas pump, and say, what do
you know, and he says, damn little: little
may be enough to pay for the gas: but some
truths are so apparent, nothing can shade
them out—hard truths like death and
