Myth of the Blaze
By George Oppen
night – sky bird’s world
to know to know in my life to know
what I have said to myself
the dark to escape in brilliant highways
of the night sky, finally
why had they not
killed me why did they fire that warning
wounding cannon only the one round I hold a
superstition
because of this lost to be lost Wyatt’s
lyric and Rezi’s
running thru my mind
in the destroyed (and guilty) Theatre
of the War I’d cried
and remembered
boyhood degradation other
degradations and this crime I will not recover
from that landscape it will be in my mind
it will fill my mind and this is horrible
death bed pavement the secret taste
of being lost
dead
clown in the birds’
world what names
(but my name)
and my love’s name to speak
into the eyes
of the Tyger blaze
of changes . . . ‘named
the animals’ name
and name the vigorous dusty strong
animals gather
under the joists the boards older
than they giving
them darkness the gifted
dark tho names the names the ‘little’
adventurous
words a mountain the cliff
a wave are taxonomy I believe
in the world
because it is
impossible the shack
on the coast
under the eaves
the rain barrel flooding
in the weather and no lights
across rough water illumined
as tho the narrow
end of the funnel what are the names
of the Tyger to speak
to the eyes
of the Tiger blaze
of the tiger who moves in the forest leaving
no scent
but the pine needles’ his eyes blink
quick
in the shack
in the knife-cut
and the opaque
white
bread each side of the knife
Copyright Credit: George Oppen, “Myth of the Blaze” from New Collected Poems. Copyright © 1975 by George Oppen. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: New Collected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2002)