I take a walk with my whirling thoughts
and the near-full moon and the dark,
and for a time, all that seemed large
in me is no less large, but it’s also a dot,
a blip when compared to the whole
of the night, as if the entirety of my life
and the life of my country and the life
of the earth could all fit in a fourteen-line poem
with two lines left blank. Because nothing I write
seems to touch how vast, how sublime it is—
the snow moon rising above red cliffs—
only space can convey how humbling it is, the night.
.
Posts Tagged ‘sonnet’
Perception: A Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moon, night, perspective, sonnet, walking on February 11, 2025| 8 Comments »
Reciting Hopkins by Heart with Peter and Gabriel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blank verse, friendship, gerard manley hopkins, reciting poetry, sonnet on December 23, 2024| 3 Comments »
The first few words we all knew well, but then
we stumbled, stuttered, reached for precious lines,
our halting voices so unlike the smooth
and sweeping windhover that Hopkins wrote
about. And still, despite our bumbling,
despite our clumsy starts and awkward spurts,
an ecstasy of plume still winged through our
attempts. The language sang, its embers glowed,
its music stirred vermillion. And our eyes
were shining, too. No wonder of it: even
plodding, ploughing fields can make the soil
gleam. With love, we ploughed that sonnet’s lines
until they shined, until the air between
us plumed and swooped, until we, too, were shining.
here, friends, is the poem we were reciting.
Amen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, gratefulness, holy, paradox, praise, sonnet on July 17, 2024| 8 Comments »
When I forget that the whole world
is holy, even the tiny dark bugs
that slip through window screens
and flock and stick to kitchen lights,
even the charred black remains of forest,
even the river as it floods bright red,
even when my cheeks are tear-stained
and my body tightens with fear,
that is when a kind letter from a stranger
arrives in the mail, or the rabbit will stand
on his back legs to nibble on mint,
or the meadow will blaze with the day’s
last slant of sunlight and my heart opens
so wide that inside the fear rises praise.
Storage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, song, sonnet on June 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I want to hear the green song in the veins of the leaves,
the dark song of soil as it warms in the midsummer sun.
I want to learn the low ballad of beets as they swell,
the racy soprano of strawberries flirty and sweet,
the slow bass of the lonesome potatoes as they fill out their lumps.
How have I not harmonized with the thrust of sunflowers?
How have I missed the chive chorus? The verses of nasturtium?
The chanting of onions as they steep in their own minor key?
If there is a garden holler known by the garlic,
world, teach it to me. I want to hear the carrots
as they reach trustingly down, down, down.
I want to carry those midsummer songs in my bones
so when winter comes, and I forget how things grow,
though it’s quiet and cold, I’ll remember, I’ll remember.
simplified
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged adjust, play, sonnet on June 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, sonnet, wishing on April 19, 2015| 1 Comment »
I’m tired of wishing longing’s hold would soften,
tired, I’m tired of wishing I could steer.
Though what’s the use in steering when so often
after steering wishward, I’m still here,
yes, here again, same face, same empty pocket,
same despair. But not hysterical—
too tired to rail. Exhaustion’s tourniquet
is good for that, at least. No oracle
worth reading here. They never forecast what
I wish to see. No shaman, no, no priest
worth heeding. They just tell me I should cut
my wishing, and that’s never helped the least.
Of course I wish to shelf these wishes, shelf
the shelf. But everywhere I turn, myself.
This sonnet was inspired by an exercise I did yesterday on the plane on the way home … I saw my good friend Karen Glenn had suggested in her weekly poem email that we might want to write a sonnet with 14 line end words that she gave us … so I did!
You might want to do the same thing … just take the last words off each line and write your way into them. She had a poem about aging vampires … and mine turned out in another voice, too … funny to see what happens when certain words are given to you …
Little Lie
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lie, poem, poetry, sonnet on February 24, 2015| 2 Comments »
Today it’s blessing fine enough I did
not fall and break my favorite crystal vase,
I did not choke, nor lose my daughter’s place
in her new chapter book. I didn’t trip
on fallen logs while running, did not flip
my car. I didn’t die, did not replace
my toothpaste with the Preparation H,
I didn’t drop a baby, didn’t slip.
And as for that sweet thing you didn’t say
that I had wished you might have said, it’s so
okay, that detail seems extremely small
amidst these other blessings of the day,
it’s no big deal you didn’t say it—no
big deal. I barely noticed it at all.
*If this looks familiar, it is … it’s an older poem I turned into a sonnet …
Have You Felt It, Too?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged delight, poem, poetry, self, sonnet, surrender on February 18, 2015| 5 Comments »
In spite of everything, an odd delight
upsurges in the body, like a tide
that claims a rocky shore, or like a wide
and widening pool of morning light—
except it’s messier. It spills, despite
our thin attempts to hold its force inside.
It sloshes, splatters, overflows. It slides
and slips, it floods, upends, engulfs, unrights.
Oh fierce irrational joy! It doesn’t care
about the setting. Doesn’t care who sees.
It soaks us with its ecstasy, its strange
unruly grace. And then it’s gone. No prayer
or pretty please will make it stay. And we
are changed: yes, still ourselves, but rearranged.
In the Black
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, sonnet, taxes on March 3, 2014| 3 Comments »
Someday they’ll learn to levy tax on love.
At least fifteen percent, but likely more.
Say thirty-five percent. With guarantors
in case we can’t pay up. Of course the gov
would want its due. There’s never quite enough
of anything. For years they thought that war
could be the country’s answer, how it pours
in money, power, makes the people tough.
And then there’s love. In fact they’ll wonder why
it took them centuries to think of it.
For unlike currency, there is no end
to love. It’s infinite. So they’ll apply
a love tax, hug tax, wooing tax. Remit
away, my friend. Preserve the country: Spend.