Veritas sequitur ...
In the small beauty of the forest
The wild deer bedding down—
That they are there!
                        
                              Their eyes
Effortless, the soft lips
Nuzzle and the alien small teeth
Tear at the grass
                              The roots of it
Dangle from their mouths
Scattering earth in the strange woods.
They who are there.
                              Their paths
Nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shade them
Hang in the distances
Of sun
                              The small nouns
Crying faith
In this in which the wild deer
Startle, and stare out.
 
From New Collected Poems by George Oppen, copyright © 1965 by George Oppen. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Poems by This Author

Discrete Series by George Oppen
If It All Went Up in Smoke by George Oppen
that smoke
Image of the Engine by George Oppen
Leviathan by George Oppen
Truth also is the pursuit of it
Myself I Sing by George Oppen
Me! he says, hand on his chest
Of Being Numerous, 12 by George Oppen
'In these explanations it is presumed that an experiencing
Of Being Numerous, 13 by George Oppen
unable to begin
Of Being Numerous, 15 by George Oppen
Chorus (androgynous): 'Find me
Of Being Numerous, 24 by George Oppen
In this nation
Of Being Numerous, 32 by George Oppen
Only that it should be beautiful
Of Being Numerous, 33 by George Oppen
Which is ours, which is ourselves,
Of Being Numerous, 40 by George Oppen
The capitol grows upon one in time
Semite by George Oppen
what art and anti-art to lead us by the sharpness
Street by George Oppen
The Forms of Love by George Oppen
Parked in the fields
Who Shall Doubt by George Oppen
consciousness / in itself


Further Reading

Related Poems
Psalm
by Vanessa Place
Poems About Animals and Pets
27,000 Miles
by Albert Goldbarth
from The Kitten and Falling Leaves
by William Wordsworth
I Am! Said the Lamb [excerpt]
by Theodore Roethke
Jubilate Agno, Fragment B, [For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry]
by Christopher Smart
A Crocodile
by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
A List of Praises
by Anne Porter
Animals and Art
by Ron Padgett
At the Zoo
by William Makepeace Thackeray
Bats
by Paisley Rekdal
Darwin's Finches
by Deborah Digges
Eletelephony
by Laura Elizabeth Richards
Epitaph to a Dog
by George Gordon Byron
Flamingo Dreams
by William Saphier
Freedom in Ohio
by Jennifer Chang
Gila
by Rigoberto González
Goldfish Are Ordinary
by Stacie Cassarino
Grasshopper
by Ron Padgett
Hawk
by Daniel Waters
Ho Ho Ho Caribou
by Joseph Ceravolo
How Doth the Little Busy Bee
by Isaac Watts
Leda and the Swan
by W. B. Yeats
Maine Seafood Company
by Matthew Dickman
Me and the Otters
by Dorothea Lasky
Mole
by Wyatt Prunty
Nonsense Alphabet
by Edward Lear
Orkney Interior
by Ian Hamilton Finlay
Quiet the Dog, Tether the Pony
by Marilyn Chin
Skunk Hour
by Robert Lowell
Testy Pony
by Zachary Schomburg
The Armadillo
by Elizabeth Bishop
The Bear
by Galway Kinnell
The Caterpillar
by Robert Graves
The Crocodile
by Lewis Carroll
The Dusk of Horses
by James Dickey
The Eagle
by Lord Alfred Tennyson
The Fly
by William Blake
The Future is an Animal
by Tina Chang
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
by Delmore Schwartz
The Lorca Variations (XXVIII)
"For Turtles"

by Jerome Rothenberg
The Moose
by Elizabeth Bishop
The Paper Nautilus
by Marianne Moore
The Parakeets
by Alberto Blanco
The Purple Cow
by Gelett Burgess
The Return
by Frances Richey
The Snail
by William Cowper
The Tyger
by William Blake
The Windhover
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Thing
by Rae Armantrout
To a Mouse,
by Robert Burns
Turn of a Year
by Joan Houlihan
Wild Gratitude
by Edward Hirsch
Wilderness
by Carl Sandburg
Woodchucks
by Maxine Kumin