a certain indefinite number of Petrarchan sonnets (57)
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.
WHEN storm-clouds brood and threaten rain
and titans gather torrents in their hands
and cast their looming shadow on the lands
from the hilltops gliding down onto the planes
over woods and dales and fields of grain
serene those things abide just where they stand
in my life I’ve fled, but now I understand
that the grace of God is also in the rain
and then at once I felt my fate reverse
I felt an intuition broach ken
my bottled self had finally come to burst
and so disclosed this trial’s purposed end:
to pour out our souls, like poets’ verse
so with the rains they may be filled again
