All selections © 2000 The Literary Estate of Ronald Johnson,
from To Do as Adam Did: Selected Poems of Ronald Johnson,Talisman Press, 2000

"Autumn"
from The Book of the Green Man (1967)

I walked up to the CLOUD,

'a country
where there is no
night'

but of moons
& with heads of fish

in the furrow,

& on each
ear, beneath a husk
of twilight

were as many suns as
kernels,

& fields were far

as the eye
could reach.

Then dipping their silver oars,

the eyes
shed characters of fire
in the grain,

its sheaves as if mackerel
shone on the waves

of air.

"Emanations"
from The Book of the Green Man (1967)

'I am a walking fire, I am all leaves.'

'I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss,
fruits, grains, esculent roots.
And am stucco'd with quadrupeds & birds all over'.

I find I advance with
sidereal motions
--my eyes containing substance

of the sun,
my ears built of beaks & feathers--

I ascend with saps

& flower in season

& eddy with tides.

With every moon,
I come from the darkness into incandescence.

My tongue assumes the apple's flesh
& my skin, the infinite spheres of the thistle's prickle. And as I
breathe

the wind has its billow--& all the grasses--

in a combing, mazy movement.

I walked up to the CLOUD

& the white light
opened
like flowers--

dog violet,
& asphodel, celandine,

red clover.

I walked up to the CLOUD

& peal after peal
rang out of earth.

First, stones
underfoot
in a sound like muffled

sheep-bells.
Then the roots of the trees

clanged:
rooks, rooks, blackbirds. Cuckoos awoke
in the tubers

--earth-worm & mole & turtle--

all danced to the thunder,
the peal & thunder.

A bellow & clamor
came out
of the hills:

in diapason--a dissonance
& musical order.

ROOKS, ROOKS, BLACK-
BIRDS, CUCKOOS.

EARTH-WORM & MOLE

& TURTLE.