Robert Duncan




Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow

 
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,   
that is not mine, but is a made place,
 
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,   
an eternal pasture folded in all thought   
so that there is a hall therein
 
that is a made place, created by light   
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
 
Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved   
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.
 
She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words   
that is a field folded.
 
It is only a dream of the grass blowing   
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down
 
whose secret we see in a children’s game   
of ring a round of roses told.
 
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow   
as if it were a given property of the mind   
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
 
that is a place of first permission,   
everlasting omen of what is.
 

John Ashbery

  The New Spirit (excerpt) I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave a...