Saturday, April 1, 2017

The Certainties of Place and Time


It's the first day of April, which is National Poetry Month.  This year, it's also eight days until Holy Week.





Here's a poem from George Oppen's "Five Poems about Poetry"

THAT LAND

Sing like a bird at the open
Sky, but no bird
Is a man—

Like the grip
Of the Roman hand
On his shoulder, the certainties

Of place
And of time

Held him, I think
With the pain and the casual horror
Of the iron and may have left
No hope of doubt

Whereas we have won doubt
From the iron itself

And hope in death. So that
If a man lived forever he would outlive
Hope. I imagine open sky

Over Gethsemane,
Surely it was this sky.
 
 

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