Geoffrey G. O’Brien
Two Philosophers

“Talk about curving” “I would like to die with you”
“Talk about the sky” “A nun in a turquoise habit
but the turquoise is blue and the nun the air”
“Talk about trees” “There is only one kind”
“Talk about trees curving into the sky”
“Just now the world stopped” “And
where it stopped it also began” “And
where it began I am jealous of poetry”
“Talk of jealousy and ten of poetry”
“A guitar, indifferent, played by a nun,
but the guitar is a tree and the nun air
and the joy we can’t have everywhere”
“Then we are not philosophers” “No, we are not”
“Then why is this letter in the crotch of the tree”
“Then why two branches departing departing”

 
Found In Volume 30, No. 06
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  • Geoffrey G. O’Brien
Geoffrey G. O’Brien
About the Author

Geoffrey G. O’Brien is the author of Green and Gray (2007) and The Guns and Flags Project (2002) and coauthor (in collaboration with the poet Jeff Clark) of 2A (2006). He teaches verse writing and literature in the English Department at UC Berkeley and at San Quentin State Prison.