A. R. Ammons - Selected Short Poems

A. R. Ammons (February 18, 1926 – February 25, 2001)

Reading
 It's nice
 after dinner
 to walk down to
 the beach

 and find
 the biggest
 thing on earth
 relatively calm.


Poetry to the Rescue
 You must be
 nearly lost to
 be (if
 found) nearly

 found


North Street
 I tipped my head
 to go under the
 low boughs but

 the sycamore mistook
 my meaning and
 bowed back.



Substantial Planes
It doesn't
matter

to me
if

poems mean
nothing:

there's no
floor

to the
universe

and yet
one

walks the
floor.



Equilibrations
If you walk back
and forth

through a puddle pretty
soon

you wet the whole
driveway but of

course dry
the puddle up.



Winter Scene
 There is now not a single
 leaf on the cherry tree:

 except when the jay
 plummets in, lights, and,

 in pure clarity, squalls:
 then every branch

 quivers and
 breaks out in blue leaves.



Reflective
I found a
weed
that had a

mirror in it
and that
mirror

looked in at
a mirror
in

me that
had a
weed in it