A Discount Love Sonnet

Yeah, but I really really really like you.
No, srsly, I mean it, don’t you see?
That’s why I’ll write a sonnet, not a haiku,
to read to you while sipping your iced tea.

(That’s you who’s sipping it, of course, not I—
I mean, I’ll get my own if I get thirsty—
but anyway, where was I?... oh, that’s right...)
I’ve worked on this since practic’ly last Thursday.

Okay, that’s only yesterday, but still
I hope you know I mean it when I say
that if you say you love me then I will
immediately jump and shout hooray

and dance and laugh and sing and spin and hop
and… what? Enough? Okay, I guess I’ll stop.

Rock of Unction

I never knew how soft a stone could be,
what depths could be contained within so flat
a slab of marble. Bathed in centuries
of tears, it holds them all, remembering that
first evening of sudden, hurried grief,
when Hope itself dissolved into a flurry
of oils and sheets and sobs, and the belief
that what was real could ever be buried.
But tears come also from joy, from the dawning
awareness of a light that shines through sorrow,
through stone, a strength that holds us in our longing,
and from that core, we lift ourselves to follow.
Thus we, this stone anointing with our tears,
find joy returned from all our griefs and fears.

Permeability

“[Poetry] makes us permeable.”
—Jane Hirshfield, interview, March 20, 2015

The more I sit still, the more I become
aware of how still it is impossible to sit.
My outer motions yield to a silent thrum
of atoms, each one spinning, embracing its
Einsteinian truth: energy subtler than air,
vibrating back and forth, into the space
occupied by the atoms of the chair
I sit in, such a rapid interlacing
that I can no longer tell where I end
and it begins, both of us melting into
atmospheric spheres of atoms, blending,
expanding, and I find myself sky-skinned,
Earth-footed, galaxy-eyed, exquisite—
a single cell throughout the infinite.

My Refrigerator

There’s half a sonnet, right behind a bit
of villanelle that actually hadn’t tasted
terribly good to start with. Rhymes that fit
with words that I’m fresh out of—probably wasted
on limericks or something trivial
like that. A metaphor that could have loomed,
humming and white against the kitchen wall,
but inside of which, only mold has bloomed.
What’s this? A couplet in the veggie bin,
forgotten about but somewhat fresh, the skin
off an old simile, a tupperware
of frozen quatrains—I think we could prepare
something perhaps not quite uneatable,
or irredeemably unreadable.

Underlined

The pathways of this book are numerous.
Though many times my eyes this way have passed
and not a word they found superfluous,
always I see new shoots that since my last
pilgrimage sprouted, ever-newly greening
and flowering over every faint impression
left by my mind, welcoming me with meaning,
freshness, and a clear grace beyond expression.
I mark my trails with pencil lines, with ink
in different colors every time I pass,
forming a map through words with lines that link
my mind to the bright purity of glass
whose sheen, it’s true, will my own face reflect,
while showing through to Truth, where all the lines connect.

Light Sonnet II: Sunshowers

Sunshowers, liquid sunshine, a blind rain
that can’t see that the sun is out. They say
the devil beats his wife, she cries in pain.
Ghost rain, a lying sun, in which the gray
and one-eyed jackal marries the wolf’s wife,
and lions give birth. This rain falls when a noble
infidel dies. Our double-sided life
looks for itself in everything that’s mobile,
extremes that alternate and then collide,
this light and dark, this dry and wet, remind
us always that we have a choice to see
which end of things we choose, to pick a side,
or bring extremes together, maybe find
the center stillness of the storm, and simply be.

Light Sonnet

The morning sunlight darts a greeting through
the air, catching the ruby sweetness as
it flies refractingly across the dew
to shimmer through the hanging flower of glass,
then blurring into feathers on the bands
of the half-spread venetian blinds until
it hovers for a heartbeat, and then lands
with the tiniest oscillating thrill,
here on the table, humming silently
and sipping now the gold from a red crescent
pooling of light that touches us and gives
a nectar luminous and iridescent,
inviting us to taste what we can see,
reminding us that light, within us, lives.

A Whole Sonnet in Two Halves

A hole is nothing but humility,
existence that can only be defined
by absence, and though anything the mind
can conjure it contains, to the degree
it does so it can only leave behind
its full potential emptiness, but when
all else is gone, then it exists again.

A whole is more than the sum of its parts,
it was nothing before the space was there
to hold it, empty, clear expanses where
ideas take form and inspiration starts
to draw to itself that which it would bear,
and that which, being born, will always hold,
behind itself, the presence of its mold.

A Turtle Sonnet

The turtle in his shell is not afraid.
Although he seems to hide and shrink from sight,
his mind is open wide. This little monk
in solitary cell, his consciousness
a spacious citadel, would never say
that he had been denied anything, but
rather, the world inside is one, he finds,
that shines, expands and swells—no longer slow
he runs like a gazelle, and over countless
rich kingdoms he presides, while, silently,
he sits at his bedside, until his breath
resumes, and breaks the spell. He rises now,
and stretches, opens shining eyes and then—
comes forth, renewed, to greet the world again.

Poetry Season

For a fast month, we harvest poems,
April-ripe and urgently bursting,
our baskets stretched with letters,
with words, with finely worked lines.
We gather our treasures together,
share them, mix them, lick our fingers
as we linger on the long notes,
rejoicing in the juice of songs.
Around us, the ground catches
the leaves, the snatches of sound, the seeds
that fall, almost unnoticed, from our pens,
and then — and then! — they sprout,
the sharp green words come shooting out,
and verse begins again.

And As I Walk

I walk, and as I walk, the bridge appears,
a single step, a single inch, but just
enough to keep me going through my fears,
to keep me going as I learn to trust.
With surer step, the surer base I find,
a faster pace, the faster comes my track.
But timid going, timid heart and mind,
draws the long proceeding trail back.
Beneath my feet, beneath my sight there lies
a vast, unlighted, fastly falling dark.
I raise my eyes, my rising, lightning eyes
and follow the far rising, lightning spark
that calls me, draws me, onward, upward, lo!
to that far shore, where God calls me to go.

The Tea Sonnet

The tins of tea proliferate beyond
all reason: shelves and cupboards overflow.
But, equally unreasonable, I’m fond
of that elixir. I suppose it shows.
Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Moroccan Mint,
Pineapple Ginger, Winter Chai, I think
without much trouble you can get a hint
that, black or green or red, it’s what I drink.
The white teas too can easily be found:
Emperor’s, Persimmon, Honeydew,
rub shoulders with the herbals that abound.
And so — what type of tea entices you?
Come sit with me and let us share a pot.
A life without some tea is simply not.

Underwater

The dreams begin already underwater,
no lead-up plot line to offer hints
as to how I got here, why the glinting
non-air now surrounds me, blotting
out my lungs as my heart begins to flutter
and then pound, sprinting.
I struggle with competing instincts,
and then, surrendering to what matters
most, at last I breathe.
And thickly though the water flows,
I do breathe, and in the breathing find
a wonder, one that helps me to believe
a truth submerged beneath life’s woes:
that open, trusting faith will bring rewards in kind.

The Third of April

for Quena

The world is fiddling now, on April Third:
      Twiddling its tendrils, weaving through the air
The notes, the thrilling trills and rills that stirred
      A soul to dance its life here as a prayer.
The world is singing now, on April Third:
      Sanctified songs of glory, songs that dare
To tickle pixies -- trickling laughs conferred
      To lift us prickling up and show us where
The world is dancing now, on April Third:
      Fox-trotting, dove-tailing, sky-leaping spheres
            Spinning beneath the smile-winged feet that run,
Bringing miles that watch the world turning, blurred
      Between her living loving laughing years:
            Another waltzing whirl around the sun.

The Overworked Sonnet

When all goes well and does not greatly strain
My efforts, skill, or allocated time,
Then I with my abilities remain
Content, nor driven greater heights to climb.
But as my obligations multiply,
My talent rapidly becomes undone,
I see how far beyond the grasp of my
Own competence my aspirations run.
’Tis then in no small panic I retreat,
To find within the source where power flows,
For Man cannot accomplish any feat,
But that his God through him has made it so.
Lord, therefore, as I labor, grant to me
That I not rest, if resting forget Thee.

Sonnet for a Name Change

A name — a written, spoken face — defines
One’s life in ways unplanned. The words and thoughts,
The actions that eventually confine
Our expectations gather to us not
By will or choice, but seemingly by chance.
A set of circumstances, random whims,
A habit that became our only dance,
These few erratic notes define our hymns.
But always life, expanding, thriving, comes
To limits marked by words, and surging through
Gives birth to new-created names that from
The past are free, while still remaining true.
And so a man may look to be the same,
Yet, being free to grow, will change his name.