George Oppen - Of Being Numerous: Sections 1-22

1

 

There are things

We live among ‘and to see them

Is to know ourselves’.

 

Occurrence, a part

Of an infinite series,

 

The sad marvels;

 

Of this was told

A tale of our wickedness.

It is not our wickedness.

 

‘You remember that old town we went to, and we sat in the ruined window, and we tried to imagine that we belonged to those times—It is dead and it is not dead, and you cannot imagine either its life or its death; the earth speaks and the salamander speaks, the Spring comes and only obs...