Of Being Numerous, 13

1908 –

1984

          unable to begin
At the beginning, the fortunate
Find everything already here. They are shoppers,
Choosers, judges; . . . And here the brutal
is without issue, a dead end.
                                          They develop
Argument in order to speak, they become
unreal, unreal, life loses
solidity, loses extent, baseball's their game
because baseball is not a game
but an argument and difference of opinion
makes the horse races. They are ghosts that endanger

One's soul. There is change
In an air
That smells stale, they will come to the end
Of an era
First of all peoples
And one may honorably keep
His distance
If he can.

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

Of Being Numerous, 13

More by this poet

Sara in Her Father’s Arms

Image of the Engine (audio only)

Myself I Sing

Poems

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Of Being Numerous, 13

More by this poet

Sara in Her Father’s Arms

Image of the Engine (audio only)

Myself I Sing

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