LINE BREAKS & OTHER VIOLENT CRIMES

“They said today” by A. R. Ammons

They said today would be partly cloudy: I’d
like to see the other part: this part is

clearly apparent, which is to say, cloudy:
alas, that ever flakes were snow: the effect

of lake effect snow is in dawn’s early light
about five inches, the plows not out, the

birds not singing, the muffled night turned
to bleached silence: but what do we here

expect, why, this: but a partly day promised,
this whole one so far is flurried: have

you ever thought how the weather, of which
there is such a tedious plenty, especially

when nothing happens for months, say, no rain
or no sun, have you ever thought how the

weather is just the planet carrying on, an
atmosphere thing native to these millions

of turnings in space: I mean, that it has
no reference to us: the weather is its weather:

it doesn’t even know that the roads are slick
or deep or that the hill roads are sliding

passageways into ditches and brambles: it
isn’t aware that someone is tangled in a

drift or that a big drift is sliding down on
someone: it’s just amazing how much it doesn’t

know: it doesn’t know anything.