Bob Valentine 1946-2007

This is just a place: we go around, distanced, yearly in a star’s

atmosphere, turning daily into and out of direct light and

slanting through the quadrant seasons: deep space begins at our

heels, nearly rousing us loose: we look up or out so high, sight’s

silk almost draws us away: this is just a place: currents worry themselves

coiled and free in airs and oceans: water picks up mineral shadow and

plasm into billions of designs, frames: trees, grains, bacteria: but

is love a reality we made here ourselves– and grief–did we design

that–or do these, like currents, whine in and out among us merely

as we arrive and go: this is just a place: the reality we agree with,

that agrees with us, outbounding this, arrives to touch, joining with

us from far away: our home which defines us is elsewhere but not

so far away we have forgotten it: this is just a place.

• A. R. Ammons, In Memoriam Mae Noblitt