the ball poem

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,

What, what is he to do? I saw it go

Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then

Merrily over-there it is in the water!

No use to say 'O there are other balls':

An ultimate shaking of grief fixes the boy

As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down

All his youth days into the harbour where

His ball went. I would not intrude on him,

A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now

He senses first responsibility

In a world of possessions. People will take balls,

Balls will be lost always, little boy,

And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.

He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,

The epistemology of loss, how to stand up

Knowing what every man must one day know

And most know many days, how to stand up

And gradually light returns to the street,

A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,

Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark

Floor of the harbour . .I am everywhere,

I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move

With all that move me, under the water

Or whistling, I am not a little boy.

this is JB, but it's not one of the dream songs, like we talked about earlier. this is one of his early poems; before the sonnets, before the dream songs, before mrs. bradstreet. at this point he still wanted to be just like yeats. weird. i like that the grief "fixes the boy." i like the end of this poem where the narrative unravels, and suddenly the poem is in first person. everything dissolves, there's water, the ball is "out of sight," we are not talking about a ball anymore; "i am not a little boy."