A.R. Ammons

So I Said I Am Ezra

So I said I am Ezra

and the wind whipped my throat

gaming for the sounds of my voice

    I listened to the wind

go over my head and up into the night

Turning to the sea I said

              I am Ezra

but there were no echoes from the waves

The words were swallowed up

    in the voice of the surf

or leaping over the swells

lost themselves oceanward

    Over the bleached and broken fields

I moved my feet and turning from the wind

    that ripped sheets of sand

    from the beach and threw them

    like seamists across the dunes

swayed as if the wind were taking me away

and said

               I am Ezra

As a word too much repeated

falls out of being

so I Ezra went out into the night

like a drift of sand

and splashed among the windy oats

that clutch the dunes

of unremembered seas

1955