Play

Nothing’s going to become of anyone
except death:
therefore: it’s okay
to yearn
too high:
the grave accommodates
swell rambunctiousness &
ruin’s not
compromised by magnificence:
the cut-off point
liberates us to the
common disaster: so
pick a perch –
apple bough for example in bloom –
tune up
and if you like
drill imagination right through necessity:
it’s all right:
it’s been taken care of:
is allowed, considering


A.R. Ammons

Summer Nights and Days

So far the nights feel lonelier than the days.
In light, the living keep me company,
and memories of voices through the years.
Each summer threads a green familiar maze.
Emerging sun-struck, you can barely spy
the slow kaleidoscope of clouds and hours.
Those flannel nightshirts chilly sleepers wear
as summer wanes: I’m giving them away.
Pass it on: you keep at the same time.
A bough has broken from the Duchess tree.
Rain swelled the apples. Too much lightness weighs
heavy: the heft of the idea of home
tempered with the detachment of a dream,
or tidal pulls, like ocean, like moonrise.


Rachel Hadas