All This Strangeness

it is a sea but is it music
binds

the spell

or thought       it is a sea

no place but the place
of desire the little boat runs up

against the long flank of the wave shadow

brought into light a place

like all others desire
desire at the heart of the living

world the poem

spells itself out (why then
all this strangeness) to say

all you know all
you are all
that has happened the world’s

birth stirs like a breeze
in the streets and the lights
of the fast car

overtaking us
on the highway were the lights
of other lives dazzling silver

fire in the rear-view mirror whitening

the grass if you look
deep

in the forest a girl’s

poem said you may see
the poem
spells itself out

        --George Oppen

---

(Ed. note: I was first introduced to this piece via a handout at the annual George Oppen Memorial lecture in San Francisco on 8. November 2002. Reading it kept me from dozing off.)

back to [poetica]