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Thursday, August 24, 2017

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.  

Monday, August 21, 2017

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.