Sonnettics

I think of darkness, fifty years ago
when I was middle-aged and deaf and blind,
when beauty was a song I sang too slow,
and how I sold my soul to lose my mind.
To beauty, raise a glass of wine and tears
and press it to my lips with gentle haste.
My hands are trembling, filled with ancient fears
of uselessness which cannot be replaced.
Three days have passed since I regained my sight,
three days since I could hear, but not rejoice,
because she only visits me by night
and haunting, sobbing silence is her voice,
reminding me of fifty years ago
when beauty was a song I sang too slow.

The engine of the runner is her heart;
the key which turns it over is desire.
I watch her run; her strength becomes a part
of will, the part that fuels the rising fire.
There’s grace to draw attention to the fact
that life is born within her graceful form.
There’s grace which leaves her beauty well intact
while power moves her forward like a storm.
She flows into her motions with an ease
that makes the wind seem tawdry as it flies.
The air is sudden stillness while her breeze
slips underneath her feet to make them rise.
Step back as she approaches, watch her stride
compelled by how her heart beats deep inside.

I never found Elysium, did you?
Behind my house there’s just a little patch
Of trees. An easement with a trickling stream
That fills with leaves of red and leaves of gold
This time of year. The wind is blowing hard
Against the branches, slowly stripping bare
The last remaining vestiges of life,
At least that life which stretches toward the sun.
Were we misled? Did we mislead ourselves?
The grass is getting long before the snow.
I think I’ll only cut it one more time.
Then, if there’s time, I’ll build a little bench
Beneath the patch of trees, beside the stream,
And watch it through the winter, from my house.

Alone, with twenty miles of silent road,
with trees, exchanging breath in quiet air.
Alone, with my ambition’s whisper slowed
into a mantra I exhale, a prayer.
So still it seems I hear my muscles bend;
my legs, well trained, have only to rejoice
triumphantly in stride as they extend.
I run until distinctively that voice
says “Quit.” In shock, instinctively I slow
my pace, although my strength does not subside.
“Just stop,” it seems insistently to grow.
“There is no point,” I hear that voice deride.
That voice is mine to silence or obey,
and quietly the miles roll away.

This sonnet is available in my book, “26.2 Sonnets for Runners.”

My soul no longer fits within my verse,
but tied to one another, I am bound
to write my tangled poetry, rehearse
how often I am lost, how seldom found.
The words no longer fit within my soul,
without the pain of knotted, twisted cords
which loosen with the loss of self-control
called passion, with its Gordian rewards.
Perhaps you only wanted pretty rhyme;
perhaps I truly couldn’t give a fuck.
In either case it seems a waste of time
to ponder such entanglements.  I’m stuck
with what I’ve chosen.  Words will never end,
just like the pain of losing you, my friend.

When all the tea is gone I wonder who
will bring me more? I’m not as old as you
might think, and yet my legs don’t work as well
as when I made this cup, this cup, this frail
remaining cup that’s half a pair. I made
this cup. You thought I meant the tea? I made
that too. But now it’s of the cup I speak–
and of the tea–although you see how weak
I am. As weak as this remaining tea
in this remaining cup. You see? You see
how weak the tea, the cup, I am? Its mate
fell to the floor and shattered there. It’s late.
I only wondered who might bring me more
to drink. My tea. My cup. Before, before . . .

It hurts to rise; the house is cold.  The day,
the week, the month have been as cruel as ice
that cracks the sill to let new drafts betray
my age. Arthritic wind feels like a knife.
And yet I rise.  The howl of misery
compels the aching shuffle of my feet
to throb across the room in agony.
What screeches like my joints out in the street?
I know before I hurt myself to rise,
and die in cold denial for my sake,
what scene the frosted window now denies;
I feel my ancient heart begin to break.
It hurts to drop in sorrow to the floor
as softly comes the knock upon my door.

You bear the only words I want to write
by brief encounters in eternity.
The moment I declare my final plight,
you clear my mind of all futility.
You touch the depth of passion in my soul
like light reflecting to the farthest reach
of some colossal cave of self-control
where caverns echo far with frozen speech.
Rise up, you say, without a word or sound.
Rise up and drink the water which we share
in pools of dreams and visions of the past.
The present drowns my senses everywhere
in warmth.  The future rushes at me fast.
Through caves of time these rivers find their flow
accelerated by the melting snow.