"Elegy for Archie Ammons" [by Jim Cummins]

Last night I read “Part Ten”
Of Archie Ammons’s Garbage
Out loud, twice, in an empty room.
Then stopped in embarrassment
To hear if anyone was listening.

I’d bought the book so many years ago
And carried it with me to New York
The only time I’d ever meet him.
I’m not one for book signings, autographs;
I always thought if what I had left

At the end of life is a bunch
Of signatures, I’d be very sad,
So rely on my imperfect memory
That doesn’t kick in often enough
To recover what is lost;

Like what is lost from that evening:
Me, standing, sweating coldly, empty,
Waiting to read, the rictus grin
What those around me fled from,
Including Archie; and then he couldn’t

Stay after because his wife was ill,
So was gone before I could get up
Enough nerve to ask him
To sign my Garbage.  At the late
Dinner, I sat between two women

Who were interested in me
Up to a point, and then that point
Was reached; and I sat for a while longer,
Listening to some lunatic who later
Became a professional poker player,

Or perhaps already was one;
And then it was time to go.
I went back to the hotel alone—
I always do, the rictus, you know—
Thinking death is an interesting display,

And maybe I’m caught up in the grip
Of a final illusion—that the light
Reaching me on a given day is truly
The light of that day—and maybe
I still exist for now in an infinity

That will be revealed as an illusion
When the countdown to death begins,
When hope is reduced to a number,
The number of days.  So I walk out
Each morning under many different suns,

Some causing my shirt to stick
To my skin, some covering the park
In an antebellum light I often feel
In certain parts of Kentucky.  First,
Archie died, then that good man’s love,

Phyllis, and I was never known to him,
Nor he to me, except in “Part Ten”
Of Garbage; and in his face as he stood
On the stage and introduced me,
And I got up and pretended my poems

Were a reality as real as morning light,
Or the willfulness of dinner-speak,
Or the light a true poet’s face can have
As he stands in a spotlight looking
At his watch, wondering at the illusion

He has set in motion, but only
With a sidelong glance, as it were,
Because he’s gazing beyond it, helpless,
To the numbered days, and feels
The need to get home quickly, quickly.

Ed. note: Archie Ammons (1926-2001) was born on February 18. He is pictured above in his office at Cornell University..

Comments

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

Archie Ammons would have liked this poem, I think. It's wise in moderation as if he'd written it himself. ". . . but wisdom says don't go too far." Just get home quickly.

[jim c]

I hope he would've. Thanks, Anne.

[Carol Kammen]

Fall 1965: Newly arrived

We entered the glowing chestnut-clad room,
noises of a party beyond.

At the edge of a screen
set up to hide the growing pile of coats,
was a tall, rusty-haired man
trying to look like a coat, recently left.

I slipped off mine and stood next to him:
a soft shouldered man,armored by a V neck sweater
under a soft jacket
in a room of dark-suited men whose clothing
announced, pronounced even, their eagerness.

'I'm Archie,' he said quietly as I stood close.
'Carol,' I answered, my shoulder lightly touching just below his elbow
We stood together, comfortable strangers
exchanging words in our entante cordiale,
at the edge of a swirl of earnest conversations.

Later, Phyllis appeared to take Archie home.