Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow
That came when we wanted it to snow?
Beautiful images? Trying to avoid
Ideas, as in this poem? But we
Go back to them as to a wife, leaving
The mistress we desire? Now they
Will have to believe it
As we believed it. In school
All the thought got combed out:
What was left was like a field.
Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around.
Now open them on a thin vertical path.
It might give us--what?--some flowers soon?
According to Ashbery, this line was actually a “found” line, in a sense – he overheard it, and not in the context of poetry (source: The Last Avant Garde, David Lehman). But in this context, it is a riff on the practical usefulness of poetry (see the title: “What is Poetry?”). What does it actually give us?
What is Poetry?