I said I will find what is lowly <br />and put the roots of my identity <br />down there: <br />each day I'll wake up <br />and find the lowly nearby, <br />a handy focus and reminder, <br />a ready measure of my significance, <br />the voice by which I would be heard, <br />the wills, the kinds of selfishness <br />I could <br />freely adopt as my own: <br /> <br />but though I have looked everywhere, <br />I can find nothing <br />to give myself to: <br />everything is <br /> <br />magnificent with existence, is in <br />surfeit of glory: <br />nothing is diminished, <br />nothing has been diminished for me: <br /> <br />I said what is more lowly than the grass: <br />ah, underneath, <br />a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss: <br />I looked at it closely <br />and said this can be my habitat: but <br />nestling in I <br />found <br />below the brown exterior <br />green mechanisms beyond the intellect <br />awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up <br /> <br />and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe: <br />I found a beggar: <br />he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying <br />him any attention: everybody went on by: <br />I nestled in and found his life: <br />there, love shook his body like a devastation: <br />I said <br />though I have looked everywhere <br />I can find nothing lowly <br />in the universe: <br /> <br />I whirled though transfigurations up and down, <br />transfigurations of size and shape and place: <br /> <br />at one sudden point came still, <br />stood in wonder: <br />moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent <br />with being!<br /><br />A. R. Ammons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/still-5/
