Kay Ryan: Repulsive Theory

Little has been made   

of the soft, skirting action   

of magnets reversed,   

while much has been   

made of attraction.   

But is it not this pillowy   

principle of repulsion   

that produces the   

doily edges of oceans   

or the arabesques of thought?   

And do these cutout coasts   

and incurved rhetorical beaches   

not baffle the onslaught   

of the sea or objectionable people   

and give private life   

what small protection it's got?   

Praise then the oiled motions   

of avoidance, the pearly   

convolutions of all that   

slides off or takes a   

wide berth; praise every   

eddying vacancy of Earth,   

all the dimpled depths   

of pooling space, the whole   

swirl set up by fending-off—   

extending far beyond the personal,   

I'm convinced—   

immense and good   

in a cosmological sense:   

unpressing us against   

each other, lending   

the necessary never

to never-ending.

Larkin: on nature

First Sight
-----------

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

 

Tops
-------

Tops heel and yaw,
Sent newly spinning:
Squirm round the floor
At the beginning,
Then draw up
Like candle flames, till
They are soundless, asleep,
Moving, yet still.
So they run on,
Until, with a falter,
A flicker - soon gone -
Their pace starts to alter:
Heeling again
As if hopelessly tired
They wobble, and then
The poise we admired
Reels, clatters and sprawls,
Pathetically over.
- And what most appals
Is that tiny first shiver,
That stumble, whereby
We know beyond doubt
They have almost run out
And are starting to die.