The Wreck on the A-222 in Ravensbourne Valley

By Jonathan Williams 1929–2008 Jonathan Williams

There are more things to love
than we would dare to hope for.
—Richard of St. Victor

where the car hit him, fireweed sprang with

blazons of fennel

and umbels

of dill fell

through the spokes of a wheel

on Whistun holiday to the sun, Denton

Welch spun a web in his crushed cycle,

sat in the seat, spine curled up like a spider—

and spied: “saw

the very drops of sweat glittering frostily

between the shoulder blades”

of a lad

…on and on he spied and bled from the blades of his cycle,

small as a spider,

hiding in the fireweed, getting

wet from the skins of many human suns aground

at the Kentish river near

Tunbridge Wells,

where the dill

lulls,

and all boys

spoil…

Source: Jubilant Thicket: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)

Biography

Founder of the Jargon Society and publisher of Jargon Press, Jonathan Williams was born in Asheville, North Carolina. He attended St. Albans School in Washington, DC, and then Princeton University before dropping out to attend the Chicago Institute of Design and Black Mountain College. A photographer and graphic artist, his books include An Ear in Bartram’s Tree: Selected Poems, 1957-1967 (1969), Strung Out with Elgar on a . . .

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