28.1.10

Magnificent with Being!


Still by A. R. Ammons


I said I will find what is lowly

and put the roots of my identity

down there:

each day I'll wake up

and find the lowly nearby,

a handy focus and reminder,

a ready measure of my significance,

the voice by which I would be heard,

the wills, the kinds of selfishness

I could

freely adopt as my own:


but though I have looked everywhere,

I can find nothing

to give myself to:

everything is


magnificent with existence, is in

surfeit of glory:

nothing is diminished,

nothing has been diminished for me:


I said what is more lowly than the grass:

ah, underneath,

a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:

I looked at it closely

and said this can be my habitat: but

nestling in I

found

below the brown exterior

green mechanisms beyond the intellect

awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up


and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:

I found a beggar:

he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying

him any attention: everybody went on by:

I nestled in and found his life:

there, love shook his body like a devastation:

I said

though I have looked everywhere

I can find nothing lowly

in the universe:


I whirled though transfigurations up and down,

transfigurations of size and shape and place:


at one sudden point came still,

stood in wonder:

moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent

with being!


3 comments:

Ruth said...

Good god, what a poem, what a revelation.

Jay said...

I think this is my favorite poem on your blog. (At least today!) It is so ABOLUTELY TRUE. Additionally, the photos complement it so well. Thanks for posting it all.

Unknown said...

Beautifully true.