We learn in Berryman’s biography, Dream Song, that this poem comes from a story told to B. by Saul
Bellow years before he wrote the poem, about a “Polack” woman in a Chicago bar
who told some guy to flake off. Bellow’s take on this moment was that women
were better, braver than men. B. figured they understood loss better than
Henry, who drank to deal with whatever trouble came, or retreated into the
past, or simply shunned the human race. It’s all right there on the surface in
the poem.
Maybe so. I don’t care. I just find myself glad the pejorative
“Polack” has faded away. I remember nonstop, endless Polack jokes in school
when I was a kid in Toledo. My dad and my uncle had a store of them that they
told over and over (and over—same ones) and that were consistently hilarious,
apparently. Even as a little kid, I thought Polack jokes were embarrassing. Lech
Wałęsa’s heroism once and for all put a stop to that, seems to me. But in
Midwestern cities like Toledo and Chicago, immigrants from Eastern Europe had
to endure a generation of marginalization, prejudice and ignorant jokes before
their children were fully acculturated. So it goes.
A “foehn” is a warm, dry wind that rolls off the lee side of
a mountain range. (It’s of German origin, with a pronunciation halfway between “phone”
and “fern”.) The foehn is much more interesting to me this evening than
anything else in the whole poem.
The Foehn
His teacup rattled in its
dish.The paper rustled. “They claim no rain
Has crossed the mountains yet,” he said.
“We’ll have to spray or else the foehn
Will turn the wheat to dust again.”
He leaves the table. “Guess I’ll learn
To let them driest fields alone.”
She clears the plates and rubs her head,
Hangs her apron on a hook.
Dinner later, of beef and grits,
That Edna recommends. “I wish”—
She turns— “that ornery sun would look
Another way. I wish to see
Them mountains break to awful bits
And then the rabbits gnaw the parts.”
He cocks his brow and smiles a touch.
“Guard your strength my dear. Our hearts
Are God’s, and all this land is God’s.
He’ll blow His weather as He will.”
“Lord knows that we don’t ask for much.
All I know’s I wish to be
At rest in shade when done’s this life.
Hell is got a burnin’ breeze,
And so’s this ranch, with dust to fill
Our silos more than wheat.” He nods.
What’s a man without his wife?
He thinks. He needs her strong, like trees
That bear the beat of time. He fits
His cap, and turns to take his leave,
Then stops. “I hope you never will
Decide you might go weak on me.”
She gains the porch then bends and sits,
Her sewing draped across her knee.
She sets herself a time to grieve
The girl who grew, then hoped, then aged,
Who thought herself alive and free
Then ended in a farmhouse, caged—
Strength evolving in her breast
The best to serve her needing men
Waiting later for her rest,
To finally sleep ‘neath dreams of when
The dustwinds swirl around and 'round
While the burning foehn pours down.
KZ
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