Jonathan Williams




Reflections from Appalachia

dawn songs in the dews of young orange trees;
and raging orisons; and wordless longings

sung in tranquility’s waters sliding in sun’s
light,

and benisons sung in these trees…

in these, yes, it is the “ah-ness,” yes, it is the course of adrenaline,
but, it is the lens opening of Frederick Delius’s luminous blind eye:
f-stop open—
all things measureless lucidities,

my eyes
so in tune: atonement, at-one-ment is
atonement

what is meant by not
being able to focus two eyes…

they lie on the horizon,
they lie on the great St. Johns River’s waters
in the monocular sunlight

three miles wide
lid to lid