John Ashbery: “The Skaters”

III-F

	There has, however, been this change, so complete as to be invisible;
	You might call it... "passion" might be a good word,
	I think we will call it that for easy reference. This room, now, for instance, is all blue, instead of blb v XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX black and white instead of blue.

	A few snowflakes are sinking in the airshaft, across the way
	The sun was sinking, casting gray
	Shadows on the front of the buildings.

	Lower your left shoulder.
	Stand still and do not see-saw with your body.

Any more golfing hints, Charlie?

	Plant your feet squarely. Grasp your club lightly but firmly in the hollow of your fingers.
	Slowly swing well back and complete your stroke well through, pushing to the very end

When putting, grasp the club firmly, swing back very slowly, and go well through with the stroke.

	"All up and down de whole creation"
	Like magic lantern slides projected on the wall of a cavern--castles, enchanted gardens, etc.
	I am slowly coming round. But please don't ask for any news.

	The traditional anagrams of moonlight
	Projected on those walls--chunks of meaning in them--
	A Your story that subsides quietly into plain historical fact.
	You have, in fact, chosen the traditional images of youth, old age, and death
	To keep harping on this traditional imagery.

	For childhood you chose a wreath of roses
	As fitting the season and the general mood.
	Maturity is symbolized by a shepherd's crook
	To bring errant sheep back to the path.

	Later life is a clock with the hands magnetized at noon
	Unable to go back or forward, in the surprise of pain
	And its amaze. Hips of trees that protect noon squatters
	looking for flowers in the grass.

	With death an angry fist
	Summoning the injured family home
	After a lifetime of errata. In these four pictures
	The total history of mankind is enchained. The reader

	Will not have been taken in.
	He will have managed to find out all about it, the way people do.
so	The moonlight congress backs out then. And with a cry
	He throws the whole business into the flames: books, notes, pencil diagrams, everything.

	No, the only thing that interests him is day
	And its problems. Freiheit, freiheit!
	To be out of these dusty cells once and for all
	Has been the dream of mankind ever since the beginning of the universe.