national poetry month, day seven: a. r. ammons

The City Limits

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

that birds' bones make no awful noise against the light but
lie low in the light as in a high testimony; when you consider
the radiance, that it will look into the guiltiest

swervings of the weaving heart and bear itself upon them,
not flinching into disguise or darkening; when you consider
the abundance of such resource as illuminates the glow-blue

bodies and gold-skeined wings of flies swarming the dumped
guts of a natural slaughter or the coil of shit and in no
way winces from its storms of generosity; when you consider

that air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen,
each is accepted into as much light as it will take, then
the heart moves roomier, the man stands and looks about, the

leaf does not increase itself above the grass, and the dark
work of the deepest cells is of a tune with May bushes
and fear lit by the breadth of such calmly turns to praise.

Soul, the body's guest,

Upon a thankless arrant!

Fear not to touch the best;

The truth shall be thy warrant:

Go, since I needs must die,

And give the world the lie.

 

Say to the court it glows

And shines like rotten wood;

Say to the church it shows

What's good, and doth no good:

If court and church reply,

Then give them both the lie.

 

Tell potentates they live

Acting by others' action,

Not loved unless they give,

Not strong but by a faction.

If potentates reply,

Give potentates the lie.

 

Tell men of high condition

That manage the estate,

Their purpose is ambition,

Their practice only hate:

And if they make reply,

Then give them all the lie.

 

Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending,

Who, in their greatest cost,

Seek nothing but commending:

And if they make reply,

Then give them all the lie.

 

Tell zeal it wants devotion;

Tell love it is but lust;

Tell time it is but motion;

Tell flesh it is but dust:

And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lie.

 

Tell age it daily wasteth;

Tell honor how it alters;

Tell beauty how she blasteth;

Tell favor how she falters:

And as they shall reply,

Give every one the lie.

 

Tell wit how much it wrangles

In tickle points of niceness;

Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness:

And when they do reply,

Straight give them both the lie.

 

Tell physic of her boldness;

Tell skill it is pretension;

Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law it is contention:

And as they do reply,

So give them still the lie.

 

Tell fortune of her blindness;

Tell nature of decay;

Tell friendship of unkindness;

Tell justice of delay:

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

 

Tell arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming:

If arts and school reply,

Give arts and school the lie.

 

Tell faith it fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;

Tell manhood shakes off pity;

Tell virtue least preferreth:

And if they do reply,

Spare not to give the lie.

 

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing,--

Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing,--

Stab at thee, he that will,

No stab the soul can kill.

Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/r/the_lie.html#VpGrdcM6Yei9BiIC.99

Ammons, A. R.. "The City Limits". Essential Pleasures. Pinsky, Robert, Ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 64.