Ammons, A.R.

United States, (1926-2001)

Hardweed Path Going

  2. Every evening, down into the hardweed
  3. going,
  4. the slop bucket heavy, held-out, wire handle
  5. freezing in the hand, put it down a minute, the jerky
  6. smooth unspilling levelness of the knees,
  7. meditation of a bucket rim,
  8. lest the wheat meal,
  9. floating on clear greasewater, spill,
  10. down the grown-up path:
  11.  
  12. don’t forget to slop the hogs,
  13. feed the chickens,
  14. water the mule,
  15. cut the kindling,
  16. build the fire,
  17. call up the cow:
  18.  
  19. supper is over, it’s starting to get
  20. dark early,
  21. better get the scraps together, mix a little meal in,
  22. nothing but swill.
  23.  
  24. The dead-purple woods hover on the west.
  25. I know those woods.
  26. Under the tall, ceiling-solid pines, beyond the edge of
  27. field and brush, where the wild myrtle grows,
  28. I let my jo-reet loose.
  29. A jo-reet is a bird. Nine weeks of summer he
  30. sat on the well bench in a screened box,
  31. a stick inside to walk on,
  32. “jo-reet,” he said, “jo-reet.”
  33. and I
  34. would come up to the well and draw the bucket down
  35. deep into the cold place where red and white marbled
  36. clay oozed the purest water, water celebrated
  37. throughout the county:
  38. “Grits all gone?”
  39. “jo-reet.”
  40.  
  41. Better turn him loose before
  42. cold weather comes on.
  43. Doom caving in
  44. inside
  45. any pleasure, pure
  46. attachment
  47. of love.
  48.  
  49. Beyond the wild myrtle away from cats I turned him loose
  50. and his eye asked me what to do, where to go;
  51. he hopped around, scratched a little, but looked up at me.
  52. Don’t look at me. Winter is coming.
  53. Disappear in the bushes. I’m tired of you and will
  54. be alone hereafter. I will go dry in my well.
  55. I will turn still.
  56. Go south. Grits is not available in any natural form.
  57. Look under leaves, try mushy logs, the floors of piny-woods.
  58. South into the dominion of bugs.
  59.  
  60. They’re good woods.
  61. But lay me out if a mourning dove far off in the dusky pines starts.
  62.  
  63. Down the hardweed path going,
  64. leaning, balancing, away from the bucket, to
  65. Sparkle, my favorite hog, sparse, fine black hair,
  66. grunted while feeding if rubbed,
  67. scratched against the hair, or if talked to gently:
  68. got the bottom of the slop bucket:
  69. “Sparkle…”
  70. “grunt, grunt…”
  71. “You hungry?”
  72. “grunt, grunt…”
  73. “Hungry, girly?”
  74. “grunt, grunt, grunt….”
  75. blowing, bubbling in the trough.
  76.  
  77. Waiting for the first freeze:
  78. “Think it’s going to freeze tonight?” say the neighbors,
  79. the neighbors going by.
  80.  
  81. Hog-killing.
  82.  
  83. Oh Sparkle, when the axe tomorrow morning falls
  84. and the rush is made to open your throat,
  85. I will sing, watching dry-eyed as a man, sing my
  86. love for you in the tender feedings.
  87.  
  88. She’s nothing but a hog, boy.
  89.  
  90. Bleed out, Sparkle, the moon-chilled bleaches
  91. of your body hanging upside-down
  92. hardening through the mind and night of the first freeze.

© A.R. Ammons. The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons: Volume 1, 1955-1977. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc (2017).

The Arc

  1. The arc
  2. of
  3. the
  4. loop, the
  5. cradle
  6. of
  7. sway
  8. to be
  9. rocked
  10. in the heights
  11. (not dropped,
  12. inert, in
  13. earth)
  14.  
  15. oh, to carry out the byways of
  16. reverie
  17. (the cedars teardrops
  18. before impact)
  19. (something to feel
  20. not just the
  21. discursive unwinding of
  22. feeling)
  23. born we scream
  24. fed we ummm and smack
  25. beboweled we grunt
  26. fucked we groan
  27. and so with death do we tussle and
  28. groan
  29. but why
  30. when in moments of importance
  31. we hold
  32. our tongues
  33. do we give
  34. significance to articulation that
  35. only waits the next
  36. seizure out
  37.  
  38. oh, to be rocked in the arm
  39. of the dwelling, to be
  40. cuddled and cooed to,
  41. to whisper and sip, slur
  42. and loll in the long
  43. unwindings and squdgings,
  44. the honey, the honey, oh,
  45. the honey high,
  46. oh, the
  47. air-clear, beer-lit,
  48. oh, the bright drop,
  49. retsyn:
  50.  
  51. eat a pig dinner sometimes and sit
  52. down in a deep chair that rightangles
  53. your uplumping belly out
  54. cuts off the avenues of circulation
  55. and boluses of air
  56. form promoting gastric
  57. distress:
  58. if it gets severe take a sip
  59. of water, will dislodge
  60. the gasball enough to ease off the
  61. pain but then walk about
  62. to re-establish the circulations
  63. also lift your arms, your hands clasped
  64. behind your head and
  65. let go of your belly or heave out your
  66. chest and meanwhile swing slowly from
  67. side to side this may ease the bubble
  68. up, also it is important to think you
  69. may not be dying, although you will be feeling
  70. like it, because added
  71. tension forms another airball
  72. over itself like those scared, foam-nesting
  73. insects
  74.  
  75. good reception
  76.  
  77. fair this morning, much
  78. warmer, over fifty, but
  79. cloudy and rainy in the afternoon
  80. with a falling off of temperature down
  81. to where a few snowflakes flew and
  82. so today was mostly dark and lowering
  83. and blustery but nice

© A.R. Ammons. The Snow Poems. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc (1977).

I Broke a Sheaf of Light

  1. I broke a sheaf of light
  2. from a sunbeam
  3. that was slipping through thunderheads
  4. drawing a last vintage from the hills
  5. O golden sheaf I said
  6. and throwing it on my shoulder
  7. brought it home to the corner
  8. O very pretty light I said
  9. and went out to my chores
  10. The cow lowed from the pasture and I answered
  11. yes I am late
  12. already the evening star
  13. The pigs heard me coming and squealed
  14. From the stables a neigh reminded me
  15. yes I am late having forgot
  16. I have been out to the sunbeam
  17. and broken a sheaf of gold
  18. Returning to my corner
  19. I sat by the fire with the sheaf of light
  20. that shone through the night
  21. and was hardly gone when morning came

© A.R. Ammons. The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons: Volume 1, 1955-1977. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc (2017).

About the Poet:

A.R. (Archibald Randolph) “Archie” Ammons, United States, (1926-2001), is a poet and educator. Ammons wrote his first poems while serving aboard a Navy destroyer during World War II. After the war, he earned a BA from Wake Forest University and an MA in English from the University of California at Berkeley. He taught at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York from 1964 to 1998.

His honors included the Academy’s Wallace Stevens Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal, the Ruth Lilly Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. [DES-12/21]

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