a certain indefinite number of Petrarchan sonnets: №176
Ordinarily I don’t publish so much poetry at Theoria-press, and instead try to provide mostly essays with an odd poem or sonnet occasionally interspersed among them. But the Muse’s visits have outstripped my ability to keep pace with prose pieces so readers who prefer essays should peruse the archives of this site, which are replete with them. This is more-or-less an actual Petrarchan sonnet so it will not be preceded by my usual exculpatory disclaimer about having departed from the paradigmatic form.
THE BRAIDED THREADS of destiny you weave unseen to you except in knots of fear and hope and things of substance you hold dear to testimony of the eye you cleave but higher vision you must now conceive when through the chinks in cave of time you peer then latticeworks of causes will appear beheld in such an aspect you perceive not things alone but also what they mean events, indeed, but also how they sound in harmony, how in the space between each tone, new blooms and metaphors abound your eye beholds though they remain unseen the flowers springing from a secret ground
Gratitude for soul nourishment
Max, I'm learning from your discipline, showing up each day to create a sonnet no matter your mood or your other activities. I believe that when we make this kind of commitment to our art, the skills are available and ready-at-hand when inspiration strikes. Thus G F Handel honed his skills producing entertainment for kings, and then in 10 days of inspired mania, he channeled The Messiah as fast as his pen could shape the notes.
Today's sonnet is a moment of inspiration. We're all grateful.
The poet who commits to fourteen lines
Finds focus and a certain inspiration
While words that don’t conduce his destination
Can have no place in sonnet’s strict confines.
A marriage, or a pledge made to a child
Can focus life, as poems focus art
A parent pares all that cannot be part
Of life that son and daughter have beguiled
He feels he’s both the finder and the found
His yoke is tight, but surely it is his
He bucks and starts, acknowledging what is
His lot and manifest, to which he’s bound.
The sum of his creation stands or falls
On what transpires within these prison walls.