Sunday, November 27, 2016

Sunday Morning Poetry with the Night Before Last Sunset


Sunset, Henry and Oliver
Pelican Cove, Rancho Palos Verdes


The Bright Day

Earth, earth!
day, this bright day
again—once more
showers of dry spruce gold,
the poppy flopped broad open and delicate
from its pod—once more,
all this again: I've had many
days here with these stones and leaves:
like the sky I've taken on a color
and am still:
the grief of leaves,
summer worms, huge blackant
queens bulging
from weatherboarding, all that
will pass
away from me that I will pass into,
none of the grief
cuts less now than ever—only I
have learned the
sky, the day sky, the blue
obliteration of radiance:
the night sky,
pregnant, lively,
tumultuous, vast—the grief
again in a higher scale
of leaves and poppies:
space, space—
and a grief of things:
motion: standing still.

A.R. Ammons

4 comments:

  1. Life goes on. We wake up, we marvel, we sorrow - and it goes on.

    Lovely picture of Henry peaking and Olive climbing, four footed to join his brother. It's incredible to watch them grow, change, isn't it?

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  2. Elizabeth, i have been noticing your photographs. They are stunning, this one in particular. You are taking in the world with different eyes lately? Real or not real?

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  3. Just "...the grief of leaves" is enough to send me over. Thank you for posting this piece by Ammons - something you clearly could have written yourself. What a beautiful Journal this is. - Erie Chapman

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  4. Lovely poem. I actually shared a moment with Archie Ammons walking into Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell University on cold autumn morning in the 1990's. As I approached the steps I saw a squirrel busying him/herself in the leaves that had built up at the base of the building. I stopped to watch the squirrel's antics, as did another person just behind me. When I looked up to smile at the shared moment I realized it was Professor Ammons. I felt honored to experience the beauty of the mundane with a great poet.

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