Monday, January 19, 2009

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.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

congratulations, it's beautiful!

what a great feeling to bring color into the midst of all this freezing coldness

Listener said...

Alice and Stuart, your presentation was fab last night at the Grange...please come again. and your website is pretty gorgeous!!!!Congratulations on your green thumbs. and do you read the poet, Mary Oliver ? she loves nature.