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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Poems in English 

• Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 70: That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 6: Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 68: Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 67: Ah, wherefore with infection should he live by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 66: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 63: Against my love shall be, as I am now by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 62: Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 61: Is it thy will thy image should keep open by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 59: If there be nothing new, but that which is by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 58: That god forbid, that made me first your slave by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 57: Being your slave, what should I do but tend by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 56: Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 95: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

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