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 form 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
Ted Berrigan
gone this day
1983
