Eyesight
It was May before my
attention came
to spring and
my word I said
to the southern slopes
I've
missed it, it
came and went before
I got right to see:
don't worry, said the mountain,
try the later northern slopes
or if
you can climb, climb
into spring: but
said the mountain
it's not that way
with all things, some
that go are gone— A. R. Ammons
I love the inversion of "my / attention came / to spring" instead of the more expected "spring came to my attention." My own attention is trained minutely if not steadily on spring. The students have taken to wearing flip-flops and lobbying to have class outside, I've been seeing croci and violets and even daffodils, and the trees outside the building where my office is have red buds, which make them look from a distance as if a warmly-colored mist has settled on their branches.
Loren Webster writes about Ammons as well. I refer you to his entry on "Eyesight," and to Modern American Poetry's A. R. Ammons site.
Oh, heck, one more:
Chiseled Clouds
A single
cemetery
wipes out
most
of my
people,
skinny old
slabs
leaning this
way
and that
as
in stray
winds,
holding names:
still, enough
silver
cathedrals fill
this
afternoon sky
to
house everyone
ever
lost from
the
light's returning.
From Essays in Idleness. I'm just free-associating here; pay me no mind.
Posted by: ben wolfson | April 08, 2004 at 09:15 PM