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Spring 1956 • Vol. XVIII No. 2 • Poetry |

Two Scenes

We see us as we truly behave:
From every corner comes a distinctive offering.
The train comes bearing joy;
The sparks it strikes illuminate the table.
Destiny guides the water-pilot, and it is destiny.
For long we hadn’t heard so much news, such noise.
The day was warm and pleasant.
“We see you in your hair,
Air resting around the tips of mountains.”

A fine rain anoints the canal machinery.
This is perhaps a day of general honesty
Without example in the world’s history
Though the fumes are not of a singular authority
And indeed are dry as poverty.
Terrific units are on an old man
In the blue shadow of some paint cans
As laughing cadets say, “In the evening
Everything has a schedule, if you can find out what it is.”

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John Ashbery is the author of over twenty books of poetry. He has received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award.

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Ah, the fartswe used to let back then.Flatulence was a kind of wayof life, I guess.Sitting around doing nothingwas another one.It’s a burden, all right,in an elegant apartmentoverlooking the Seine. […]

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