Psalm

1908 –

1984

Veritas sequitur ... 


In the small beauty of the forest 
The wild deer bedding down—

That they are there! 
                        
                              Their eyes 
Effortless, the soft lips 
Nuzzle and the alien small teeth 
Tear at the grass 

                              The roots of it 
Dangle from their mouths 
Scattering earth in the strange woods. 
They who are there. 

                              Their paths 
Nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shade them 
Hang in the distances 
Of sun 

                              The small nouns 
Crying faith 
In this in which the wild deer 
Startle, and stare out.

Sara in Her Father’s Arms

Cell by cell the baby made herself, the cells
Made cells. That is to say
The baby is made largely of milk. Lying in her father’s arms, the little seed eyes
Moving, trying to see, smiling for us
To see, she will make a household
To her need of these rooms—Sara, little seed,
Little violent, diligent seed. Come let us look at the world

George Oppen

2008

Myself I Sing

Me! he says, hand on his chest.
Actually, his shirt.
                     And there, perhaps,
The question.

Pioneers! But trailer people?
Wood box full of tools—
                         The most
American. A sort of
Shrinking
             in themselves. A
Less than adult: old.

A pocket knife,
A tool—
               And I
Here talking to the man?
                        The sky

That dawned along the road
And all I've been 
Is not myself? I think myself
Is what I've seen and not myself

A man marooned
No longer looks for ships, imagines
Anything on the horizon.

George Oppen

2002

Poems

Psalm

More by this poet

Sara in Her Father’s Arms

Image of the Engine (audio only)

Myself I Sing

Poems

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Psalm

More by this poet

Sara in Her Father’s Arms

Image of the Engine (audio only)

Myself I Sing

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