My theme this week is attention and I am kicking off the week with a poem by A. R. Ammons.
When I found this poem it made me think of ADD or ADHD and my relationship with attention. Only a few years ago I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. Prior to that, the best word to describe me was as a classic underachiever. Throughout the week I will attempt to break down and examine issues of attention.
Pet Panther illustrates the way a mind works when it is unfocused or inattentive, as well as the experience of hyperfocus.
Pet Panther
By A.R. Ammons
My attention is a wild
animal: it will if idle
make trouble where there
was no harm: it will
sniff and scratch at the
breath’s sills:
it will wind itself tight
around the pulse
or, undistracted by
verbal toys, pommel the
heart frantic: it will
pounce on a stalled riddle
and wrestle the mind numb:
attention, fierce animal
I cry, as it coughs in my
face, dislodges boulders
in my belly, lie down, be
still, have mercy, here
is song, coils of song, play
it out, run with it.
Easy thoughts will sometimes strangle a now distant affair with imagination of waves in the air.
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binding an empty silent space where there are only vaporous forms, ideas seethe or are reborn
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