"Of the Surface of Things" - Wallace Stevens

I

In my room , the world is beyond my understanding;
But when I walk, I see that it consists of three or four
     hills and a cloud.

II

From my balcony, I survey the yellow air,
Reading where I have written,
"The spring is like a belle undressing."

III

The gold tree is blue,
The singer has pulled his cloak over his head.
The moon is in the folds of the cloak.



-Wallace Stevens

Silo

I used to live around farms,
though not entirely familiar
with the inner workings of one.
Silos, for instance. All
the time I could see them
I never knew what purpose
they served - never sought one.
It seemed enough
they were there-
domed, like observatories;
unique and purposed
like a human thumb,
round and peculiar
against red-block barns.

"Myself I Sing" - George Oppen

Me! he says, hand on his chest.
Actually, his shirt.
                     And there, perhaps,
The question.

Pioneers! But trailer people?
Wood box full of tools—
                         The most
American. A sort of
Shrinking
             in themselves. A
Less than adult: old.

A pocket knife,
A tool—
               And I
Here talking to the man?
                        The sky

That dawned along the road
And all I've been 
Is not myself? I think myself
Is what I've seen and not myself

A man marooned
No longer looks for ships, imagines
Anything on the horizon. On the beach
The ocean ends in water. Finds a dune
And on the beach sits near it. Two.
He finds himself by two.
                        Or more. 
'Incapable of contact
Save in incidents'
                        And yet at night
Their weight is part of mine.
For we are all housed now, all in our apartments,
The world untended to, unwatched.
And there is nothing left out there
As night falls, but the rocks.

-George Oppen