Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,
inimitable contriver,
endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon,
thank you for such as it is my gift.
I have made up a morning prayer to you
containing with precision everything that most matters.
‘According to Thy will’ the thing begins.
It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.
You have come to my rescue again & again
in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.
You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves
and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.
Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs:
how can I ‘love’ you?
I only as far as gratitude & awe
confidently & absolutely go.
I have no idea whether we live again.
It doesn’t seem likely
from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view
but certainly all things are possible to you,
and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter and
to Paul
as I believe I sit in this blue chair.
Only that may have been a special case
to establish their initiatory faith.
Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.
May I stand until death forever at attention
for any your least instruction or enlightenment.
I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.
Next to Dickinson’s 816, this might be my favorite poem of all time. Major hat-tip to Brad Davis, who read it at the 2012 Conference.
This is just spectacular.
“You have come to my rescue again & again
in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.
You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves
and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.”
Sad. Hope he had a bit time left in this frame before the end.
[…] “Eleven Addresses to the Lord” (Address #1) by John Berryman: Each of Berryman’s Eleven Addresses to the Lord is a burst of genius but the only one I can recite from heart is the First Address. While all of his refrains issue from the depths of middle age, I fell for them a few decades prior, probably out of some misplaced romantic notions about his self-destruction (and a love of The Hold Steady). Yet as I sort through the thicket of midlife myself–what he refers to as “impassable, sometimes despairing years”–his semi-crazed devotions seem less crazed than ever, and his alcoholism more tragic. “Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs” is just one of ten phrases that sticks in the head. The boring moon, too! Sublime and true and unbearably hilarious, Berryman’s verses increase my own praise. – David Zahl […]