Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche and Thunderstorm (J.M.W. Turner), Sonnet #541

 

An avalanche exists in the abstract,

A violent snow and ice cataract,

Content without shape, without content,

A proliferation of the absent.

A blizzard wipes the air empty and white

And confuses real things with closed-eye night.

(Formlessness is a natural order,

An extremity without a border.)

The thunderstorm exposes the mountain

With splintering intensity; fountains

Of light define the crag, the slope, the tree —

Revealing only momentarily.

These words (also abstract) erase all forms

From the blankest page — revealing more storms.

With thanks to Jeff Strayer for the Turner suggestion.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here: My Human Disguise.

Wedding (Marc Chagall), Sonnet #540

 

For Ruth

We couldn’t foretell the future.

Who can? But with hope, trust, desire

On the wedding day, we made pure,

Our breasts pressed, blanketing with fire.

Outside a blizzard blocked the streets

And dazzled the windows light white.

Later, later, we heard the night,

Unafraid, as we stretched smooth sheets.

Forty-three years and nothing’s changed —

Not between us, not you, not me.

Newness, like children, we arranged.

We held them, then we set them free.

My love, I hold you in my arms,

Our kisses silence all alarms.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:

My Human Disguise.

Casting (Winslow Homer), Sonnet #539

 

When I cast the world disappears —

The rod, the reel, the line, the fly,

And the river cease to exist.

Even disappearance clears,

Leaving only motion. I try

To reach beyond the blazing mist.

The trout are only a waiting,

Still beneath endless cataracts,

Oblivious of my baiting.

Sand and pebbles stipple their backs.

When I leave with an empty creel,

I’m empty too, my wrist is sore.

Though I again begin to feel,

There is nothing lost to restore.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here: My Human Disguise. 

The Sheltered Path (Claude Monet), Sonnet #538

The old man plods toward senescence

On the sheltered path of his thought.

He thinks only what he can sense,

Senses only what he's been taught.

The trees on the path were planted

Decades ago as a windbreak.

Their trunks have been slightly canted

By dumb and insistent breezes.

Always more asleep than awake,

He follows that path, coughs, wheezes,

And nothing much occurs to him

He hasn’t sensed a thousand times.

Revelation would be a whim

Of these trees, these rustling chimes.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:

My Human Disguise.

 

Carpet of Memory 2 (Paul Klee), Sonnet #537

“Flying carpet” might be more apt,

Fleeing, unreachable, rapt.

Not magical, but uncanny,

Not even real, epiphany

Without a point because it is

Not up to analysis.

We’re given only a number —

How many can’t be counted, known —

(Fraying threads, fabric unsewn).

“I’m certain that I remember,”

I say. The carpet flaps. I fall.

Can I recall one thing at all?

The memories that I most fear

Are those I hope to lose next year.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here: My Human Disguise. 

Fog Run II (Alice Guerin), Sonnet #536

As if we’ve wandered into dark chances,

A fog descends through thick forest branches

With the silent drop of a heavy drape.

Our first intuition is for escape.

The fog uncenters us, spreading us thin —

Once guiltless we feel we might deserve sin,

That the fog is a judgement for not being —

Not feeling, not hearing, and not seeing —

Not as we might and now we know we must.

It’s not too late! The fog is life, not dust. 

Look back! Don’t let the other fall behind,

Or you both might become equally lost.

There could be nothing where the sun once shined,

But only now. Soon you’ll know heat or frost.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here: My Human Disguise. 

Myna Bird in Pine Tree (Mu Ch’i), Sonnet #535

 

It’s said you have to split its tongue

When the myna is very young

Before you can teach it to speak.

At first it wags its yellow beak

While emitting a stifled squeak.

The patient teacher says one word,

And then to unconfuse the bird,

Repeats it many times, mimics

Himself, until the bird’s mind clicks

And its forked tongue repeats the word.

It can learn any human sound

As long as it's kept in its cage.

It dies if released from that cage

Into worlds of confusing sound.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:

My Human Disguise.