top of page
No_Moon.png

25 Sept 2022

J-T
Kelly

No_Moon.png

New
Moon

Oct 9th

Sep 10th

Gone

After A R Ammons’

Eyesight

            Some things that go are gone

            Forever. Some, like dawn,

            Renew themselves, or are

            Renewed. It’s true — look far


            Enough, you’ll see the end

            Of dawn. But who can see

            So far and still pretend

            To hate eternity?


            Out there the veil is torn.

            What’s gone is there reborn.

            Out at the river’s head

            The dead do not stay dead.


            It’s only here, today,

            We lose our lost for good —

            Our joy three days away,

            Our backs against the wood.

Behind the poem...

I wear trifocals, love the mountains, and without my wife to point them out to me, would miss every blooming thing in spring. So it’s no surprise I resonate with A R Ammons’ Eyesight, with its imagery of sight and its limits in the mountains; seeing far enough to make out what you’ll never reach, yet missing what’s up close – right in front of your eyes. I took the last line from Ammons’ poem as my starting point, then went wherever the subject took me.

bottom of page