We awake in the same moment,
a thousand miles of mist between us.
Here comes your ghost again.
We could not have continued,
there was too much time ahead of us.
Truth is, we are tied to each other, while we exist.
But what will happen to us in 10 or 20 years?
That we can hear each other at all
is the extraordinary power of language.
The mist from a world of whirling particles
produces form.
We must discuss it again.
We must try to understand it.
The final look of things.
—A cento built into relevance from George Oppen's notes and papers
collected in Part 4 of the first "Pipe-Stem Daybook," bound
collected in Part 4 of the first "Pipe-Stem Daybook," bound
together by the author with pipe-stem cleaners, c. 1965.
