797. World, by A. R. Ammons

Breakers at high tide shoot
spray over the jetty boulders
that collects in shallow chips, depressions,

evening the surface to run-off level:
of these possible worlds of held water,
most can't outlast the interim tideless

drought, so are clear, sterile, encased with
salt: one in particular, though, a hole,
providing depth with little surface,

keeps water through the hottest day:
a slime of green algae extends into that
tiny sea, and animals tiny enough to be in a

world there breed and dart and breathe and
die: so we are here in this plant-created oxygen,
drinking this sweet rain, consumed this green.

Source: Collected Poems 1951-1971

807. Song, by A. R. Ammons

Merging into place against a slope of trees,
I extended my arms and
took up the silence and spare leafage.
I lost my head first, the cervical meat
clumping off in rot,
baring the spinal heart to wind and ice

which work fast.
The environment lost no self-possession.
In spring, termites with tickling feet
aerated my veins.
A gall-nesting wren took my breath

flicking her wings, and
far into summer the termites found the heart.
No sign now shows the place,
all these seasons since,
but a hump of sod below the leaves
where chipmunks dig.

Source: Collected Poems 1951-1971

874. Day, by A. R. Ammons

On a cold late
September morning,
wider than sky-wide
discs of lit-shale clouds

skim the hills,
crescents, chords
of sunlight
now and then fracturing

the long peripheries:
the crow flies
silent,
on course but destinationless,

floating:
hurry, hurry,
the running light says,
while anything remains.

Source: The Selected Poems