LXXXVIII
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 adjure and
When I have required some heavenly music which even
now
I do to work mine end upon their senses
That this aery char is for I'll break
My staff bury it certain fathoms in the earth
And deeper than did every plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
It is 5:15 a.m. Dear Chris, hello.
(The Sonnets, 1964; 1982)
