I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth <br />and go on out <br /> over the sea marshes and the brant in bays <br />and over the hills of tall hickory <br />and over the crater lakes and canyons <br />and on up through the spheres of diminishing air <br />past the blackset noctilucent clouds <br /> where one wants to stop and look <br />way past all the light diffusions and bombardments <br />up farther than the loss of sight <br /> into the unseasonal undifferentiated empty stark <br /> <br />And I know if I find you I will have to stay with the earth <br />inspecting with thin tools and ground eyes <br />trusting the microvilli sporangia and simplest <br /> coelenterates <br />and praying for a nerve cell <br />with all the soul of my chemical reactions <br />and going right on down where the eye sees only traces <br /> <br />You are everywhere partial and entire <br />You are on the inside of everything and on the outside <br /> <br />I walk down the path down the hill where the sweetgum <br />has begun to ooze spring sap at the cut <br />and I see how the bark cracks and winds like no other bark <br />chasmal to my ant-soul running up and down <br />and if I find you I must go out deep into your <br /> far resolutions <br />and if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves<br /><br />Archie Randolph Ammons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hymn-3/
