the focused beam
folds all energy in:
the image glares filling all space:
the head falls and
hangs and cannot wake itself.

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Laser (l. 24-28). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)

for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it

and death could never end it:

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Gravelly Run (l. 7-11). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)

When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold
itself but pours its abundance without selection into every
nook and cranny

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. The City Limits (l. 1-3). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)

air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen,
each is accepted into as much light as it will take,

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. The City Limits (l. 13-14). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)

just about everybody older
(and some younger) collected in one place
waiting, particularly, but not for
me,

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Easter Morning (l. 27-30). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)

a dance sacred as the sap in
the trees,

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Easter Morning (l. 99-100). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)

only total expression

expresses hiding: I'll have to say everything
to take on the roundness and withdrawal of the deep dark:
less than total is a bucketful of radiant toys.

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Cut the Grass (l. 15-18). . . Harper Anthology of Poetry, The. John Frederick Nims, ed. (1981) Harper & Row.)

the ocean, multiple to a blinding
oneness

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Cut the Grass (l. 14-15). . . Harper Anthology of Poetry, The. John Frederick Nims, ed. (1981) Harper & Row.)

to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening
scope, but enjoying the freedom that
Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision,
that I have perceived nothing completely,
that tomorrow a new walk is a new walk.

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Corsons Inlet (l. 124-128). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)

risk is full: every living thing in
siege: the demand is life, to keep life: the small
white blacklegged egret, how beautiful, quietly stalks and spears
the shallows, darts to shore
to stab?

(Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Corsons Inlet (l. 70-74). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.)