An Improvisation for the Stately Dwelling

[oceaninmotion]

This fall morning is pretty much
like a fall morning
          the bottoms of poplars
and tops of beeches
leafless
          a wind NNW
          has re-lifted the geese
          and sent them southerly
          I know a man whose cancer has
          got him just to the point
          he looks changed by a flight of stairs
people pass him and speak
extra-brightly
he asks nothing else
he is like a rock
reversed, that is, the rock has a solid
body and shakes only
reflected in the water but he shakes
in body only,
his spirit a boulder of light
          nature
          includes too much
and art can't include enough
the sky is soft this morning
all gray,
regioned here and there with ivory
light
the flames of climbing vines are
shedding out, falling back,
stringing fire
the brook almost blisters with
cool equations among fallen colors
what is to become of us we know
how are we to be taken by it or take it

--A. R. Ammons