When I was young the silk
of my mind
hard as a peony head
unfurled
and wind bloomed the parachute:
The air-head tugged me
up,
tore my roots loose and drove
high, so high
I want to touch down now
and taste the ground
I want to take in
my silk
and ask where I am
before it is too late to know.
—Archie Randolph Ammons, “When I Was Young The Silk,” from The North Carolina Poems, edited by Alex Albright, (N.C. Wesleyan College Press, 1994). From the Parabola Spring issue, 2006, “Coming to our Senses.”
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