George Oppen, "Of Being Numerous," part 20:
--They await
War, and the news
Is war
As always
That the juices may flow in them
Tho the juices lie.
Great things have happened
On the earth and given it history, armies
And the ragged hordes moving and the passions
Of that death. But who escapes
Death
Among these riders
Of the subway,
They know
By now as I know
Failure and the guilt
Of failure.
As in Hardy's poem of Christmas
We might half-hope to find the animals
In the sheds of a nation
Kneeling at midnight,
Farm animals,
Draft animals, beasts for slaughter
Because it would mean they have forgiven us,
Or which is the same thing,
That we do not altogether matter.
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