In Memoriam Mae Noblitt
This is just a place: we go around, distanced, yearly in a star's atmosphere, turning daily into and out of direct light and slanting through the quadrant seasons: deep space begins at our heels, nearly rousing us loose: we look up or out so high, sight's silk almost draws us away: this is just a place: currents worry themselves coiled and free in airs and oceans: water picks up mineral shadow and plasm into billions of designs, frames: trees, grains, bacteria: but is love a reality we made here ourselves-- and grief--did we design that--or do these, like currents, whine in and out among us merely as we arrive and go: this is just a place: the reality we agree with, that agrees with us, outbounding this, arrives to touch, joining with us from far away: our home which defines us is elsewhere but not so far away we have forgotten it: this is just a place.
Credit
From A Coast of Trees by A. R. Ammons, published by W. W. Norton & Company. Copyright © 1981 by the estate of A. R. Ammons. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Date Published
01/01/1981