Family History

This is a scan of the third of four pages from a Family Bible that looks like it fell apart long ago.

It begins with my Great-grandfather William Anderson Hopper, born 1834. He fought in the Civil War on the losing side. My father, Jack Hicks Hopper, is the last name on this page, below the decorative frame; his birth year, 1906, is missing where the corner has chipped off the page. My brother, with his large family, has custody of these treasures now.

Uppermost

The top 

grain on the peak

weighs next

to nothing and,

sustained

by a mountain,

has no burden,

but nearly

ready to float,

exposed

to summer wind,

it endures

the rigors of having

no further

figure to complete

and a 

blank sky

to guide its dreaming

A. R. Ammons

   

The Language They Speak Is Things to Eat; poems by 15 contemporary North Carolina poets, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1994, page 21.

A. R. Ammons is a master of the very short line. Notice that this poem has only a few commas and does not end with a period. There are lines with only one or two words. This poet was recommended to me by my brother, Robert, in the year or so before he died. Rob was very fond of Ammons' book-length poem, Garbage, which is about that subject, I was delighted to find him in this regional anthology.