Rogue Elephant poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster

The reason to be autonomous is to stand there,
a cleared instrument, ready to act, to search

the moral realm and actual conditions for what
needs to be done and to do it: fine, the

best, if it works out, but if, like a gun, it
comes in handy to the wrong choice, why then

you see the danger in the effective: better
then an autonomy that stands and looks about,

negotiating nothing, the supreme indifferences:
is anything to be gained where as much is lost:

and if for every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction has the loss been researched

equally with the gain: you can see how the
milling actions of millions could come to a

buzzard-like glide as from a coincidental,
warm bottom of water stuck between chilled

peaks: it is not so easy to say, OK, go on
out and act: who, doing what, to what or

whom: just a minute: should the bunker be
bombed (if it stores gas): should all the

rattlers die just because they rattle: if I
hear the young gentleman vomiter roaring down

the hall in the men’s room, should I go and
inquire of him, reducing him to my care: no

wonder the great sayers (who say nothing) sit
about in inaccessible states of mind: no

wonder still wisdom and catatonia appear to
exchange places occasionally: but if anything

were easy, our easy choices soon would carry
away our ignorance with the world-better

let the mixed-up mix and let the surface shine
with all the possibilities, each in itself.

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• Robert Burns: I’ll Go And Be A Sodger: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Raging Fortune: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Fickle Fortune: Fragment by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Stanzas On The Same Occasion [Prospect of Death]: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns Country: O Tibbie, I Hae Seen The Day: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: In The Prospect Of Death: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: First Six Verses Of The Ninetieth Psalm Versified, The : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Paraphrase Of The First Psalm: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Under The Pressure Of Violent Anguish: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Winter: A Dirge: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Mary Morison: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Bonie Peggy Alison: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lass Of Cessnock Banks, The: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Here’s To Thy Health: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns Country: Ronalds Of The Bennals, The: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Handsome Nell: by Robert Burns
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