by A. R. Ammons
it, as I always thought it was, the inclines
of the peaks, the coming together, so high
4900that only the unspeakable shares anything with
it: oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, god, I love the
dibble of the beginning rain, the blue storm
off in a rumbling locus and coming here, the
wind holding, the humidity high, before the
4905falling out of the playing through: when
_________
the wind strikes, everything will bend over:
the brunt will break, ease will rise again:
the Lord of the rain is where the swirls make
up and where the synthesis crests along great
4910sweeping lines of fronts and water appears,
but also there is the primate lord, the big
guy at the top of the order, in whose favor is
ease and place and out of whose favor are the
anxieties of hell, the peripheral body without
4915a body: order at all costs, because only in
that tent may the infant nurse, the seed set,
the loom waft, for when orders collide (the
cost of order) the wounded and the dead precede
supper’s menu:
4920DON’T ASK ME
112
in the middle of the piddle there’s a puddle:
well, it’s Monday morning, and it’s business
as usual, no business: because it’s summer
and the days are agetting shorter: up on the
4925north end of the west ridge where the sun sets
you can see, marking it off, it’s coming back
this way: when it pales out front behind that limb
of the crabapple tree, nights will be long &
_________
brittle cold: are plus a is area: I am
4930finally fatally flawed, I daresay: the pain
in my hipjoint and humerus is—well, not very
funny: the swelling in the ankles promises
plenty: and a network of other ailments is
so complicated balancing one ailment
4935tilts another: medication becomes
virtually self-diseasing: so many pills you
can’t tell the effects from the side effects:
and who are you, someone before the medications
or during or after: at least, you are being
4940kept, but in another place: are your feelings
lofty or zolofty, red or blue, down or double
downdown: do you, in this condition, have any
right to speak, for who or what is speaking, is
it milligrams or anagrams, is it tranquility or
4945tranquilium: will we psyches be like the
skies: we’ll never again see clouds that may
not be vapor trails: we’ll never be clear and
know our clouds for what they are: maybe we’ll
forget about clouds altogether and just tune
4950ourselves to blue skies, all of us: where wd
the disheveling fun come from then if we
refused any more wars—think of the sublimity
_________
of civilians in mass graves, some with holes
in their drawers for raping: wd we have no
4955more heroes, no skinny escapees, nobody to weep
over, no generals accepting the fates of
thousands into their strategies:
NEVER HAS THE GRASS BEEN SO WELL WATERED,
RAIN WATERED, I MEAN
113
4960can one be powerful and not invoke nightmares,
bad family scenes, ugly diseases, or immolation,
can one be kindly and yet movingly present:
must one divulge his drives and practices, and
must they be low and damaging in order to
4965entertain others: may one not weakly put out
his airy net and catch the butterflies or more
weakly put out some sugar water and let the
butterflies go: was it not suggested by the
ancient ones that the valleys outlive the
4970peaks and that to yield is to let something
headstrong pass: should one disturb another
with a strong emotion or a psychological twist:
even when the complacent crowd beg for a
forceful focus, a motive that impels a single
4975way, and even when they offer big money and
_________
wide acclaim, should one assume the office and
make something up: complacency to the
complacent, some would argue: may one, for
those few already rocked by horror and in no
4980need of vivifying pain, may one, for them, let
the drought brook trickle all day, let the
breeze touch the pond like a thought, so they
may be quieted and strong when the grizzly
walks up: alas: nature’s mixed: white
4985clouds float serenely through a summer afternoon
or fangs fly out of a bush at you: should
poems rehearse the terrors so as to leave us
apprised, and should poems at other times hum
the frantic into a pause: I long for a poem
4990so high, but not too high, where every agony
can be acknowledged as a quiver in the easy
ongoing of the pacific line: love is a kind of
violence; death takes hold sometimes violently:
grief’s gusts nearly break your ribs: we deal as
4995best we can with these but running through, and
rising, is the constant will that longs for
companionship with an all-keeping indifference
YOU’VE NEVER
SEEN ANYTHING
5000LIKE IT
OR LIKED
ANYTHING SCENIC
114
the world, so populous, is so decimated: there
were 40 aunts and uncles: there was Aunt
5005Blanche, and Uncle Claude, Aunt Mitt, Aunt
Kate (I loved her), Uncle John (commanding)
and Uncle Frank (soused), and Aunt Lottie,
Addie, Laura. . . . I believe I believe; no, I
believe: but in what: I believe in belief:
5010that’s hollow belief, the form of belief, without
substance: does that do any good, do you
think: well, I would say, if I may say so,
that at least you’d be favorably placed in
attitude: I don’t know if you ever noticed
5015it, but what you tell yourself can make a
difference: it cannot, as far as I can tell,
keep, say, the house from burning down, but it
can be useful to say to yourself—so, look,
it’s not like it’s the end of the world: we’ll,
5020I’ll, you’ll rebuild, start over: the sun
comes up tomorrow (in all likelihood): it wd
not be useful to say, that’s the end of me:
so make all the “good” working internal
differences you can—and there are even
5025circumstances in which internal difference can
influence external difference: for example,
_________
when the aforementioned grizzly issues rapt
from the bushes, what you do may influence what
he does: I don’t know what you should do: I
5030think I heard you should be still and not
scream: maybe unless he comes at you, then u
should commence to shout and wave your
arms: I’m not sure about that: but if you
keep your head while all about you people aren’t
5035keeping their heads, you may be chosen as their
leader: absotively and posilutely:
LIFE IS A SUEÑO, ALL RIG
HT,
ALSO A TRIP
(AND ONE HELL OF A NOTE)
115
5040I just can’t buy the bi- words: bye, bye to
them and their double meanings: bi-monthly:
is that twice a month or every other month:
what is the matter with “every other”: say,
every other week, or fortnightly: what’s the
5045matter with fortnightly, except it sounds like
the Brits, and who can stand the Brits: I
cannot, to pause momentarily, bear the Brits:
the wind in their sails would not blow a gnat
off his podium: they are so flat they slip
5050under linoleum: they look, frankly, as if
they rarely see a washcloth: and on TV they
_________
sound so gruff, just in saying, good morning,
how are you (if they say that), you think
they’re getting to gnaw each other: the Brits
5055is, by rumour, shits, I mean, twits: what,
bubble lips, do you mean by that, says razor
(no, blade) lips: bubbles and blades, bubbles
and blades: have you ever heard it said you
shouldn’t buy shoes in the morning: for
5060because with day’s stress your ankles swell
and what fits freely at dawn racks your
leggings by dusk: of course, if you go out
too late to get fit, the next morning your
sloppy shoes fall off your feet: this may be
5065an exaggeration, but maybe not: suppose you
are gouty or weak-hearted or hyperhydrated,
this exaggeration may be an understatement:
you may have to swathe your ankles in the
morning and disbandage them at eve: rather
5070than shoe fit foot, in other words, make foot
fit shoe: when the bull elephant, his ears
heisted, takes out after a cow, his biswanger
so long and heavy it loops to the weeds, well,
then you think, does it really need to be that
5075long: does it need to reach in that far: now,
big surprise! when the cow sulls at last and
he flaps it up there, it’s in, and you think,
_________
what a trip for the ole boy down that love
canal: true the trip is over before you can
5080pack a lunch, but, heck, how long should a
two-year celebration take, all that dense and rhythmical
commemoration:
BEFORE LONG
116
some notes: buy morning shoes in the morning
5085and evening shoes in the evening: okay, so
sure, fill the veins with ore, but let them
be the veins of butterfly wings, lest the fill
sink like pig iron: for it must be remembered
the weightier matters are given to butterflies to
5090fly away with: pitch the lighter problems to
the pigs, they make a wallowing mud of them,
just as people might lack a substantive medium
without their little worries and remedies:
(this note is turning into a dissertation):
5095a further note: ’twere foolish to be foolish
and wise to be wise (although, I suppose, it
were sometimes wise to be foolish and foolish
to be wise): one last (or still further) note:
soil sticks thinly to the slated hillsides
5100around here, and rain, when it rains, and it
sure has rained this spring and summer, along with
_________
even moderate winds, the roots of tall spruce
wobble in their sockets, the grasp so slight,
and the trees lean toward the roofs, a pity,
5105the electrical wires could come down with the
trees and shingles and timbers could fly: it
is better to rent, except then you never get
your roots down and a little blowoff is all
you could need to move you away: last note:
5110elephants live a whale of a long time. . . .
OFF AGAIN
117
what are the structures of upholding: how do
they hold: to what heights do they attach to
point and steady them, and upon what ground can
5115they settle: will the base rock swim, and the
heights, lo, they burn away in the sun, mists
and fringes of fire: of what material can so
high an arising as we need be made: why, of no
earthly thing but of will, blank will, which
5120acquires nor wields weight but simply insists
that it is as it is, right through the ruins of
truth which melts to reservation and contradiction
right through the rigors of all loss, no more
nothing than the nothing at the end it joins:
5125so, let us look about us in spite of what
_________
applies and say what must be: what must be:
you ask: (the crows gathered somewhere across
the hill this morning—August 3—and there
was a flurry of raucous introduction, the new
5130young, ready to fly, getting acquainted with
the old community, winter together ahead, the
isolations of summer-rearing behind): I try to
hide the old fool playing the fool, but you
hear, don’t you, the young man, still young,
5135still under there saying yes yes to the new
days darkened howsomever: it is a sad song but
it sings and wants to sing on and on and when
it can no more it wants someone else to sing:
to sing is everything but it is also specifically
5140to dive the stave into marshy passageways and
bring relief and the future singers in. . . .
FLAWS AND DRAWBACKS
FUCKING RIGHT (1999)
Fucking Right
Nobody fucks anybody
who fucks anybody,
and anybody’s a
nobody who fucks
5anybody, still anybody
who fucks nobody’s
a nobody, worse
than a nobody
who’d just as
10soon fuck a
nobody as anybody:
on occasion, somebody
will fuck anybody,
nobody or not,
15because when you
fuck anybody you
could be fucking
somebody as well
as nobody, though
20there are fewer
somebodies out there,
I guess, than
nobodies: to be
somebody, you have
_________
25to be a
nobody and fuck
anybody till you
find a somebody:
when somebody fucks
30somebody, it’s right,
but if, having
tried hard, you
find neither nobody
nor somebody, fuck
35off, you may
be bothering people.
(1998)
Rough Estimate
Most creatures
aren’t preachers:
tho some’s sounds
do redound:
5lions’ roars
bother whores
and turn pimps
into wimps:
if owls screech
10it’s not to preach
