The Magic Square (Albrecht Durer), Sonnet #467

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My Human Disguise.

The summer is an empty hourglass

I tumble through like a clump of sand

That cannot, trying very hard, pass

Through the neck and softly land

At the bulbs’ bottom, top or bottom,

Depending on the hour of the turn.

The asphalts and red bee balms burn

And the sun is a single blazing atom.

The bell has been silent, raising hope

(It all depends on squares and magic

And the diminution of the tragic)

That someday someone will tug on its rope,

Awakening the prayed-for lightning storm

That once our angel promised to reform.

Cicada (Ruth Diamond-Guerin), Sonnet #370

The cicada shifts the air like a loom.
Its sizzling klaxon rises in repeats,
Insisting on filling the summer’s room
Even as it winds down in lazy beats.
A pause. The shuttle shifts, then starts anew,
Reaching a pitch of pure intensity,
As if sound is the proof immensity
Of seething essence from which all life grew.
In September we see them fly around
Aimlessly, as if they want to be found
And later we do find them, on the ground,
While yet back and forth a few weakly sound.
The patterns in the late October leaves
Are what the now silenced cicada weaves.