Saturday, September 2, 2017

tools in our hands in the clamorous








POPULIST

George Oppen

I dreamed myself of their people, I am of their people,   
I thought they watched me that I watched them   
that they
 
watched the sun and the clouds for the cities   
are no longer mine    image    images
 
of existence    (or song
 
of myself?)    and the roads for the light   
in the rear-view mirror is not   
death but the light
 
of other lives tho if I stumble on a rock I speak   
of rock if I am to say    anything      anything   
if I am to tell of myself    splendor
of the roads    secrecy
 
of paths for a word like a glass
 
sphere encloses   
the word opening   
and opening
 
myself and I am sick   
 
for a moment
 
with fear let the magic
infants speak we who have brought steel
 
and stone again   
and again
 
into the cities in that word blind
 
word must speak   
and speak the magic
 
infants’ speech driving   
northward the populist
north slowly in the sunrise the lapping
 
of shallow   
waters tongues
 
of the inlets glisten
like fur in the low tides all that
 
childhood envied the sounds   
 
of the ocean
 
over the flatlands poems piers foolhardy
 
structures and the lives the ingenious   
lives the winds
 
squall from the grazing   
ranches’ wandering
 
fences young workmen’s
 
loneliness on the structures has touched   
and touched the heavy tools    tools   
in our hands in the clamorous
 
country birth-
light savage
 
light of the landscape magic
 
page the magic   
infants speak