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Glass

Glass

By A. R. Ammons 1926–2001

The song

sparrow puts all his

saying

into one

repeated song:

what

variations, subtleties

he manages,

to encompass denser

meanings, I’m

too coarse

to catch: it’s

one song, an over-reach

from which

all possibilities,

like filaments,

depend:

killing,

nesting, dying,

sun or cloud,

figure up

and become

song—simple, hard:

removed.

A. R. Ammons, “Glass” from Collected Poems: 1951-1971. Copyright © 1965 by A. R. Ammons. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Source: Collected Poems: 1951-1971 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1972)

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Poet A. R. Ammons 1926–2001

Subjects Nature, Animals, Arts & Sciences, Music

Poetic Terms Free Verse