John Ashbery


 

Late Echoes 
  
Alone with our madness and favorite flower 
We see that there really is nothing left to write about. 
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things 
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over 
For love to continue and be gradually different. 
Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally 
And the color of the day put in 
Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter 
For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic 
Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting. 
Only then can the chronic inattention 
Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory 
And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows 
That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge 
Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day. 

D. H. Lawrence

 from Pansies THE WHITE HORSE The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on and the horse looks at him in silence. They are s...