JOHN BERRYMAN

 

The Poem of the Sphere

That is the boy now, that it lost its sphere,
That, that he is it to make? I saw it to go
Glad to jump, below the street, and then
Glad the excess—there he is in the water!
No use to say “is other spheres there”:
One grief of final agitation repairs the boy
While he is rigid, tremendous, looking at fixed below
All its new days in the port where
Its sphere was. I not intrude in it,
Currency of ten cents, one another sphere, am worthless. Now
He senses the first responsibility
In a world of the possessions. The peoples will make examination of spheres,
Spheres will be lost always, small boy,
And no one purchases a sphere stops backwards. The money is external.
It is learning, well behind its desperate eyes,
Epistemology of the loss, as to be above
Knowing that what each man must one day know
And the majority they know many days, as to be above.
And gradually the returns of the light to the street,
It whistle blows, the sphere are of the sight,
Then the part of me will explore the deep and dark
Wooden floor of the port . . . I am in all part,
Me suffer and move myself, my mind and my movement of the heart
With that it moves me, under the water
Or to whistle, me is not a small boy.

 

Translated from English to Portuguese then back to English using AltaVista’s Babel Fish