<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">The One Thing That Can Save America</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><br></span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Is anything central?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Orchards flung out on the land,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Urban forests, rustic plantations, knee-high hills?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Are place names central?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Elm Grove, Adcock Corner, Story Book Farm?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">As they concur with a rush at eye level</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Beating themselves into eyes which have had enough</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Thank you, no more thank you.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">And they come on like scenery mingled with darkness</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">The damp plains, overgrown suburbs,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Places of known civic pride, of civil obscurity.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">These are connected to my version of America</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">But the juice is elsewhere.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">This morning as I walked out of your room</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">After breakfast crosshatched with</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Backward and forward glances, backward into light,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Forward into unfamiliar light,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Was it our doing, and was it</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">The material, the lumber of life, or of lives</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">We were measuring, counting?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">A mood soon to be forgotten</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">In crossed girders of light, cool downtown shadow</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">In this morning that has seized us again?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">I know that I braid too much on my own</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Snapped-off perceptions of things as they come to me.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">They are private and always will be.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Where then are the private turns of event</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Destined to bloom later like golden chimes</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Released over a city from a highest tower?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">The quirky things that happen to me, and I tell you,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">And you know instantly what I mean?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">What remote orchard reached by winding roads</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Hides them? Where are these roots?</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">It is the lumps and trials</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">That tell us whether we shall be known</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">All the rest is waiting</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">For a letter that never arrives,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Day after day, the exasperation</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">The two envelope halves lying on a plate.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">The message was wise, and seemingly</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Dictated a long time ago, but its time has still</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Not arrived, telling of danger, and the mostly limited</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Steps that can be taken against danger</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Now and in the future, in cool yards,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">In quiet small houses in the country,</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><br></span></font></p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#1d2129"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- John Ashbery</span></font></p></div></body></html>