Poetics
by A. R. AmmonsOriginal Language English
I look for the way
things will turn
out spiraling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in
so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:
I look for the forms
things want to come as
from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:
not the shape on paper -- though
that, too -- but the
uninterfering means on paper:
not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.
 | -- from Collected Poems: 1951 - 1971, by A. R. Ammons |
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/ Image by Randy Son Of Robert /
View All Poems by A. R. Ammons
I look for the way
things will turn
out spiraling from a center...
This poem is a delightful meditation on how form emerges "spiraling from a center" of essential nature.
I look for the forms
things want to come as
from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:
Form is the expression of a more subtle foundation. Ammons is using the world of color and shape as an exercise for the awareness, a way of looking at the outer to discover the inner.
Looking at the world this way, a stillness settles on us, and we begin to see the stillness of things, even in their movement. And we start to recognize how shape and color both hide and reveal the true nature of things.
so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:
Looking at the world this way, the perceptual wall between ourselves and what we witness fades away, and we become something new, bigger, open, a collective unity, "the self not mine but ours"...
not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.
Wonderful!
Recommended Books: A. R. Ammons
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| Collected Poems: 1951 - 1971 | Brink Road: Poems | Selected Poems | The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy | A Coast of Trees: Poems by A R Ammons |
| More Books >> | ||||
