Personal anthology: A. R. Ammons

By on April 8th, 2004

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.

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One Response to “Personal anthology: A. R. Ammons”

  1. ben wolfson says:
    April 8, 2004 at 9:15 pm

    Are we only to look at flowers in full bloom, at the moon when it is clear?
    No, to look out on the rain and long for the moon, to draw the blinds and not to be aware of the passing of the spring—these arouse even deeper feelings. There is much to be seen in young boughs about to flower, in gardens strewn with withered blossom.

    From Essays in Idleness. I’m just free-associating here; pay me no mind.