Tom M. Wilson

Literary critics always seem to have something to say. But sometimes they should keep quiet. Today all I want to do is share with you some lines from the poem ‘Still’ by the American poet A. R. Ammons:

I said what is more lowly than the grass?

Ah, underneath a brown crust of dried burnt moss

I looked at it closely and said this can be my habitat

but nestling in I found green mechanisms beyond intellect awaiting resurrection and rain

so I got up

And ran, saying ‘There is nothing lowly in the universe’

I found a beggar

He had stumps for legs

nobody was paying him any attention

everybody went on by

I nestled in and found his life

There, love shook his body like a devastation

I said, ‘Though I have looked everywhere, I can find nothing lowly in the universe.’