Easter Morning

 —Photo Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

EASTER MORNING
—A.R. Ammons (1926-2001)

I have a life that did not become,


that turned aside and stopped,


astonished:


I hold it in me like a pregnancy or


as on my lap a child


not to grow old but dwell on

 



it is to his grave I most


frequently return and return


to ask what is wrong, what was


wrong, to see it all by


the light of a different necessity


but the grave will not heal


and the child,


stirring, must share my grave


with me, an old man having


gotten by on what was left



 

when I go back to my home country in these


fresh far-away days, it’s convenient to visit


everybody, aunts and uncles, those who used to say,


look how he’s shooting up, and the


trinket aunts who always had a little


something in their pocketbooks, cinnamon bark


or a penny or nickel, and uncles who


were the rumored fathers of cousins


who whispered of them as of great, if


troubled, presences, and school

 



teachers, just about everybody older


(and some younger) collected in one place


waiting, particularly, but not for


me, mother and father there, too, and others


close, close as burrowing


under skin, all in the graveyard


assembled, done for, the world they


used to wield, have trouble and joy


in, gone

 



the child in me that could not become


was not ready for others to go,


to go on into change, blessings and


horrors, but stands there by the road


where the mishap occurred, crying out for


help, come and fix this or we


can’t get by, but the great ones who


were to return, they could not or did


not hear and went on in a flurry and


now, I say in the graveyard, here


lies the flurry, now it can’t come


back with help or helpful asides, now


we all buy the bitter


incompletions, pick up the knots of


horror, silently raving, and go on


crashing into empty ends not


completions, not rondures the fullness


has come into and spent itself from



 

I stand on the stump


of a child, whether myself


or my little brother who died, and


yell as far as I can, I cannot leave this place, for


for me it is the dearest and the worst,


it is life nearest to life which is


life lost: it is my place where


I must stand and fail,


calling attention with tears


to the branches not lofting


boughs into space, to the barren


air that holds the world that was my world



 

though the incompletions


(& completions) burn out


standing in the flash high-burn


momentary structure of ash, still it


is a picture-book, letter-perfect


Easter morning: I have been for a


walk: the wind is tranquil: the brook


works without flashing in an abundant


tranquility: the birds are lively with


voice: I saw something I had


never seen before: two great birds,


maybe eagles, blackwinged, whitenecked


and –headed, came from the south oaring


the great wings steadily; they went


directly over me, high up, and kept on


due north: but then one bird,


the one behind, veered a little to the


left and the other bird kept on seeming


not to notice for a minute: the first


began to circle as if looking for


something, coasting, resting its wings


on the down side of some of the circles:


the other bird came back and they both


circled, looking perhaps for a draft


they turned a few more times, possibly'


rising—at least, clearly resting—


then flew on falling into distance till


they broke across the local bush and


trees: it was a sight of bountiful


majesty and integrity: the having


patterns and routes, breaking


from them to explore other patterns or


better ways to routes, and then the


return: a dance sacred as the sap in


the trees, permanent in its descriptions


as the ripples round the brook’s


ripplestone: fresh as this particular


flood of burn breaking across us now


from the sun.

____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Illustration
Courtesy of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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