In Memoriam Mae Noblitt

By A. R. Ammons 1926–2001

This is just a place:

we go around, distanced,

yearly in a star’s

atmosphere, turning

daily into and out of

direct light and

slanting through the

quadrant seasons: deep

space begins at our

heels, nearly rousing

us loose: we look up

or out so high, sight’s

silk almost draws us away:

this is just a place:

currents worry themselves

coiled and free in airs

and oceans: water picks

up mineral shadow and

plasm into billions of

designs, frames: trees,

grains, bacteria: but

is love a reality we

made here ourselves—

and grief—did we design

that—or do these,

like currents, whine

in and out among us merely

as we arrive and go:

this is just a place:

the reality we agree with,

that agrees with us,

outbounding this, arrives

to touch, joining with

us from far away:

our home which defines

us is elsewhere but not

so far away we have

forgotten it:

this is just a place.

“In Memorium Mae Noblitt,” from A Coast of Trees by A.R. Ammons. Copyright © 1981 by A.R. Ammons. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Source: A Coast of Trees (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1981)

Biography

A. R. Ammons was born in rural North Carolina, and his experiences growing up on a cotton and tobacco farm during the Great Depression inspired a great deal of the poet's work. Ammons wrote his first poems while serving aboard a Navy destroyer during World War II. After the war, he completed his education, then held a variety of jobs before beginning his teaching career at Cornell University in 1964. Ammons once told the . . .

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