John Ashbery: “The Skaters”

-12-

	And, as into a tunnel, the voyage starts
	Only, as I said, to be continued. The eyes of those left standing on the dock are wet
	But ours are dry. Into the secretive, vaporous night with all of us!
	Into the unknown, the unknown that loves us, the great unknown!

	So man nightly
	Sparingly descends
	The birches and the hay          all of him
	Pruned, erect for vital contact. As the separate mists of day slip
	Uncomplainingly into the atmosphere. Loving you? The question sinks into

	That mazy business
	About writing or to have read it in some book
	To silently move away. At Gonnosfanadiga the pumps
	Working, urgent in the thickening sunset, like boys' shoulders

	And you return to the question as to a calendar of November
	Again and again consulting the surface of that enormous affair
	I think not to have loved you                  but the music
	Petting the enameled                      slow-imagined stars

	A concert of dissatisfaction whereby           gutter and dust seep
	To engross the mirrored image and its landscape.:
	City in dirt, favorable mirth.

	As when
	through darkness and mist
	the pole-bringer
	demandingly watches
	I am convinced that these things are of some importance.

	Firstly, it is a preparing to go outward
	Of no planet limiting the enjoyment
	Of motion--hips free of embarrassment etc.

	The figure 8 is a perfect symbol
	Of the freedom to be gained in this kind of activity
	The perspective lines of the barn are another and different kind of example
	(Viz. "Rigg's Farm, near Aysgarth, Wensleydale," or the "Sketch at Norton")
	In which we escape ourselves--putrefying mass of prevarications etc.--
	In remaining close to the limitations imposed.

	Another example is this separate dying
	Still keeping in mind the coachmen, servant girls, duchesses,etc. (cf. Jeremy Taylor)
	Falling away, rhythm of too-wet snow, but parallel
	With the kind of rhythm substituting for "meaning."