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John Ashbery

“

As I sit looking out of a window of the building
I wish I did not have to write the instruction manual on the uses of a new metal.

John Ashbery

“

You and I
Are suddenly what the trees try
To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

John Ashbery

“

For this is action, this not being sure, this careless
Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow,
Making ready to forget, and always coming back
To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

John Ashbery

“

The seasons are no longer what they once were,
But it is the nature of things to be seen only once,
As they happen along, bumping into other things, getting along
Somehow. That’s where Orpheus made his mistake.

John Ashbery

“

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.

John Ashbery

“

I don’t look on poetry as closed works. I feel they’re going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.

John Ashbery

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