{"id":4104,"date":"2017-09-25T06:40:41","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T13:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i81.a52.mywebsitetransfer.com\/?p=4104"},"modified":"2017-10-02T20:40:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T03:40:23","slug":"in-honor-of-john-ashbery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dactylfoundation.org\/?p=4104","title":{"rendered":"In honor of John Ashbery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Dactyl Foundation owes much to John Ashbery, who was an active advisory board member from our earliest days. He\u00a0 brought a number of talented poets and art critics through our doors and contributed to many discussions about poetry, history, science and art. Thank you, John.<\/p>\n

In celebration of his life and work,\u00a0 we asked Tom Breidenbach to dedicate a poem to his memory.<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

Lea Lay<\/p>\n

\u2014for John, in memorium<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are amazing\u2026\u201d \u2014John Ashbery, from \u201cSome Trees\u201d<\/p>\n

Their sundry heights, the crowns
\non some apportioned geometrically
\nabout a slant echo of their stem,
\nthe spindly chute the seed
\nattaches to in rows like fraying
\nfeathers in a faerie arrow\u2019s tail\u2026
\nTheir wispy lusters roam
\nfrom blonde to green slats
\nand dribbles interspersed
\nwith ruddy motes\u2014the browns
\nof flower husks whose prickly
\nnubs exclaim regalia\u2019s symbols\u2014
\nand on to woven sprays of umber
\nor a bristly and recessive blaze
\nwhose ochre taunt evanesces
\nfrom sienna\u2019s paler intonations
\nintermeshed in chiefly static
\npoise among the dun and lumpish
\nauburn tangles knotting
\nthis fleece of sward winds burnish
\nat it brazes in the summer sun.
\nWith tips like listing quills
\nscribbling a score of constant song
\nand a winsome spate of narrow
\nleaves that tend to curl
\ntheir pointed tips groundward
\nthe tallest bob and bow
\nas though observing, or lean
\nin meekly fractured unison as
\nif repeating gestures of oblation
\nresembling the ardent arc
\na just sovereign\u2019s scepter traces
\nin conferral of forgiveness
\nor a duty. And soon the thrum
\na plunging node of breeze effects
\nenjoins a clump to flange
\nin pliant radii extending
\nin all directions adjacent blades
\nare bent, these splat gyrations\u2019
\nrazzmatazz immediately yielding
\nto daintily exasperated do-si-dos
\nfor but the hint of time remaining
\nbefore familiar nods resume
\nfrom near repose, a spell in turn
\nsubsumed by a loop to looping
\nleague of spirals reminiscent
\nof the drastically adroit maneuvers
\na maestro\u2019s baton at the crescendo
\nof a sheer lament unravels
\nas though to ape that host
\nof vernal tendrils twined with locks
\nsweetly sweeping within Elysium
\na brow they loll and toss upon
\nas dew accrues to glaze this
\nsylvan glade\u2019s chatoyant luster,
\nthe paisley pox its drops deposit
\non petals, leaves, and stalks
\ndepicting each letter of these words.<\/p>\n

\u2014Tom Breidenbach<\/p>\n