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

"Samuel Palmer: the Characters of Fire"
from A Line of Poetry, A Row of Trees (1964)

In the road above me, I was struck with the peculiar
appearance of a very white shining cloud, that lay
remarkably close to the ground. The sun was nearly
setting, but shone extremely bright. I walked up to
the cloud, & my shadow was projected into it; when
a very unexpected, & beautiful scene was presented
to my view. The head of my shadow was surround-
ed at some distance by a circle of various colours,
whose centre appeared to be near the situation of the
eye. . . .

John Haygarth, 1790

 

As if the flashing of mackerel in phosphorescent sea,
the eye, a swimmer,
covered with fire after every immersion
in the air,
is to Palmer

to be led beyond
the horizon, to where--as a hand makes sheaves--
it gathers to itself all light

in visionary harvest:

a situation of
the eye,

that to Coleridge, the Marigold,
Monk's-hood,
Orange-lily & Indian pink
flash with light--

or that Darwin observe phosphorus in eyes
of a horse,

& water-drops which lie

like quicksilver on cabbages.

I walked up to the cloud,

'a country
where there is no
night'

but of moons
& with beads 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.