I checked, and it’s been over a year since I posted a Berryman poem. Time for another–sadly prophetic–Dreamsong. The poem mentions Richard & Helen Blackmur. You can read the details of the visit here.
Henry’s Understanding
He was reading late, at Richard’s, down in Maine,
aged 32? Richard & Helen long in bed,
my good wife long in bed.
All I had to do was strip & get into my bed,
putting the marker in the book, & sleep,
& wake to a hot breakfast.
Off the coast was an island, P’tit Manaan,
the bluff from Richard’s lawn was almost sheer.
A chill at four o’clock.
It only takes a few minutes to make a man.
A concentration upon now & here.
Suddenly, unlike Bach,
& horribly unlike Bach, it occurred to me
that one night, instead of warm pajamas,
I’d take off my clothes
& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
into the terrible water & walk forever
under it out toward the island.
John Berryman