the generations
and the solace
of flight memory
of adolescence with my father
in France we started
at monuments as tho we treaded
water stony
waters of the monuments and so turned
then hurriedly
on our course
before we might grow tired
and so drown and writing
thru the night (a young man,
Brooklyn, 1929) I named the book
series empirical
series all force
in events the myriad
lights have entered
us it is a music more powerful
than music
till other voices wake
us or we drown.
From: Axelrod, Steven Gould; Roman, Camille; and Travisano, Thomas (eds.), The New Anthology of American Poetry: Postmodernisms 1950-Present, Volume Three, 2012, Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London, p. 18.
(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=w5DT8j-jfaUC)
Date: 1978
By: George Oppen (1908-1984)