Thursday, June 12, 2008

Cascadilla Falls


I've been feeling overdue for a poem. I was assigned an essay comparing this poem to another back in college, and was fond of the last stanza. I found one typo in this version on the web, and still am looking for a more reliable, definitive version, but in the meantime:

Cascadilla Falls
By A.R. Ammons

I went down by Cascadilla
Falls this
evening, the
stream below the falls,
and picked up a
handsized stone
kidney-shaped, testicular and

thought all its motions into it,
the 800 mph earth spin,
the 190-million-mile yearly
displacement around the sun,
the overriding
grand
haul

of the galaxy with the 30,000
mph of where
the sun's going:
thought all the interweaving
motions
into myself: dropped

the stone to dead rest:
the stream from other motions
broke
rushing over it:
shelterless,
I turned

to the sky and stood still:
oh
I do
not know where i am going
that I can live my life
by this single creek.

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