A Final Sonnet
For Chris
How strange to be gone in a minute! A man
Signs a shovel and so he digs Everything
Turns into writing a name for a day
Someone
is having a birthday and someone is getting
married and someone is telling a joke my dream
a white tree I dream of the code of the west
But this rough magic I here abjure and
When I have required some heavenly music which even now
I do to work mine end upon their senses
That this aery charm is for I’ll break
My staff bury it certain fathoms in the earth
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.
It is 5:15 a.m. Dear Chris,
hello.
Used with permission of University of California Press, from The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan by Ted Berrigan © 2005; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.