Stone Formation, Sonnet #367

 

The experience of enlightenment

Is the arrangement of a few beach stones

On an old wooden deck, not an event,

Not a vision, not a handful of koans.

Ikkyu had this moment of insight

On hearing the song of a soldier's slight

That drove two girls into a nunnery,

Leaving their general his gunnery:

“Sixty blows from my master’s stick would serve

As well to achieve what I don’t deserve.”

These four stones have been carelessly arranged,

Each chosen for its one flat edge to rest

And have in wind and rain remained unchanged.

In their presence I’m an unwanted guest.

Note: Much of Ikkyu’s life is apocryphal, though

the story of his enlightenment upon hearing the

blind man’s song about two women ill-treated

by a general is a central part of his legend. The

quote I attribute to him is consistent with the
legend, though partly my invention.  

Three Spheres II (Escher), Sonnet #366

The past is images faded into patterns,

A dim, smudged diary of pleasures and concerns

We see through a crystal sphere of water and oil,

A second universe of calm and bitter moil.

The future yet to appear is already here,

Like the moon in clouds or a mask, a faceless sphere.

We can’t be sure, but we’re almost convinced it’s there,

As we take on faith there’ll be a next breath of air.

The present is our own distorted reflection

To be, added to the past’s fading collection

At the instant we see the next experience

With a curious and innocent prurience.

No; present is our eyes, myriad blinking spheres

That see through reflections to find that we are seers.  

The Cricket Eclipse, Sonnet #365

He chirps beneath our crabapple tree all night long.

The cricket’s krrrr is a two, three and four beat song,

Random and loud. He stops when a voice from afar

Seems to answer, rasping the same note bar for bar.

(The cicada’s bright buzzing in the August sun

Is lovelier, but isn’t meant for anyone.)

I do not understand the cricket’s existence,

His urgency, or his athletic persistence.

He fills the humid summer night with his griping,

Yet stops at the first pre-dawn robin’s sweet piping.

I’ve never heard him make a sound during the day,

Until today, when the air went from light to gray.

As the sun’s eclipse spread its mockery of doom,

I heard all the crickets in the neighborhood boom.

Ruins Of The Oybin Monastery (Caspar David Friedrich), Sonnet #364

The monastery, a home of belief —

It doesn’t matter which — slowly decays.

The roof beams go first, nothing wooden stays.

Moss paints the stone arches in bas-relief, 

Images of dead and forgotten grief.

We live in roofless rooms with a sly thief,

Who steals, first our parents and eldest friends,

Then our useless youth, which he quickly spends.

Our music and books are replaced with fakes,

Our mirrors with odd faces, double takes.

Though I could not kill the thief if I would,

I defy him — plant flowers, kiss the wind.

I have children I hug; I’ve seldom sinned.

He can’t have my memories, bad or good.

Lake Michigan Lightning (Julia Guerin), Sonnet #363

The mantle of the lake, the shield of the sky

Holding back the stars, and, on cloudless nights,

The sunset, button the lake and sky closed.

The first barely audible thunder sigh

Is preceded by a cloud-blurry light.

The sound grows orderly, almost composed.

It’s midnight and I stand at the window.

The lightning never flashes where I look

And blinds me from above and below,

The lake refracting every crooked hook.

When it’s upon me, I cover my ears

And close my eyes to resurrect old fears.

Then the rain comes and the violence flies

Up the hills behind me and quickly dies.

The Death of Sophonisba (Pierre Guerin), Sonnet # 362

I don’t know if my intentions for this painting
Will be interpreted by my descendant who
Will write about my treatment of a suicide.
I hid her beauty in a semblance of fainting,
Head rested on crossed arms, slumped, seated, eyes blue,
A victim of her new husband’s weakness and pride.
I hope he’ll see into what I’ve tried to convey,
Not the tragedy, or the waste, but the decay
Of sense and feeling in a woman betrayed
By politics and a perversion of honor.
Yes, a woman used like a beast, a perfect maid
Who died still with the worst sin dishonoring her.
My heir, absolve both her and me of betrayal
In the sympathetic lies in my portrayal.

Note: Sophonisba drank poison in 203 B.C. to save her 
Carthaginian husband’s life and honor. Pierre Guerin, 
the painter, is speaking of me, his “descendant,” though 
it is unlikely that I am one.

The Anguished Morning (de Chirico), Sonnet #361

Morning light steals darkness from its hiding places.
The unadorned plastered wall or triumphal arch
Outlines the visible by what it erases.
With each second the shadows go colder and parch.
After dawn the dark runs flat and dense from the square
Over vast lawns up the side of the cathedral.
A locomotive engine with its human bawl
Stops silently for a few hours, won’t be where
Decades ago before the wars the tracks were laid —
It wanders up the plaza like a drunken shade.
We don’t venture then into the shadows or sun.
A fool would let himself be caught by either one.
Morning light steals our souls from their hiding places,
Defining what we are by what it erases.