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 grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young 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.
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 grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young 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 poem creatively uses a good combination of tone, imagery, and symbolism. Berryman used imagery to create a depressing tone in the beginning, depicting a scene where a young boy has lost his ball when it bounced into the harbor. The ball bouncing into the harbor symbolizes an individual losing his childhood; it happened unexpectedly and once it did happen, the boy was terrified. To further show the boy’s disappointment, Berryman explains how losing the ball was significant to the boy and how money wouldn’t easily replace it. Like childhood, once the ball was lost, it couldn't be retrieved. The poem’s theme begins to develop at this moment, as Berryman wants the reader to understand that life is meaningful and hard to replace. He wants readers to understand that people must experience life to the fullest and enjoy every moment. The last part of the poem explains that the speaker of the poem will eventually “explore the deep and dark floor of the harbor.” This section might actually be referring to suicide and death out of devastation resulting from loss for a few reasons. First, the ball represents a lost memory that no longer exists on Earth, and it’s in the harbor, so going in the harbor would seem to mean dying. Second, the second to last two lines in the poem say the speaker suffers and that he wants to move under the water, which literally means drowning. Third, John Berryman was depressed and suicidal when he wrote this poem, so it seems natural that he’d put such thoughts into his writing. Obviously, I think suicide is the wrong way to cope with loss, but this last section of the poem explains how loss at times can be devastating enough to incentivize a person to commit suicide.
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