First Bloom of 2009

 I strongly feel that this bloom merits a moment of poetic reflection---granted, I gave it about five minutes while Stuart mumbled in the background something about freezing and hurry it up---but just in case the sight of the bloom doesn't move you, hopefully Ammons's poetics will.

POETICS

I look for the way

things will turn 

out spiralling 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.

A.R. Ammons (1926-2001)

We'll forgive this NC native poet for attending Wake Forest as an undergrad.  I suppose he would be proud of his team right now.