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.
Author
A. R. Ammons

Archie Randolph Ammons was born outside Whiteville, North Carolina, on February 18,
Date Published: 1981-01-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/memoriam-mae-noblitt