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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Of Impressions...a sonnet





There is no sturdy bulwark for the heart
To guard it from the boldness of your sigh
There is no sentinel to stand on guard
Or seal the echo dripping from the sky
Caught in the throat of midnight’s moody breeze
The elements of love and longing seep
For none can thwart the flow of memories
They rise and fall like billows of the deep
As yesterday puts on the muted robe
Of centuries that form the silent dust
The milkweed flings its silk across the globe
Heedless of where its silver seed is thrust
But we, the author of our private woes
Can never its full direness disclose

***

Wrapped in the velvet pleasure of your thought
Is all the goodness of this world I ask
It compensates for all the ‘what-is-not’
The mind is surely a mysterious flask
I lift my glass up to the weeping air
The wine of retrospect is bitter-sweet
The shadow-lull of summer’s empty chair
Are phantom waves receding from my feet
I trace the words you brushed against my cheek
Time cannot steal the laughter from love’s grin
Or snuff the whisper of the thoughts we speak
We seal their touch in vaults beneath our skin
For we, the keepers of love’s kind caress
Must cherish it with sacred tenderness

***

Life paints upon the canvas of our souls
Its intimate and panoramic art
Where none can hear the murmur that consoles
Or runs translucent fingers through the heart
And no one else can see the artist’s brush
The feathering of light against the dark
Or how the colors whirl and swirl and rush
In passion-surge where there is no bulwark
What color are the tears that midnight weeps?
Who shapes the imprint of our deepest sigh?
Or tears the lining from our hidden deep
Who lights the spark of wisdom in our eye?
We are the lone spectators of its whole
As life paints memories upon the soul

© Janet Martin

7 comments:

  1. Yuriy: When did you write this?

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  2. Janet, this is a spectacular write. BEAUTIFUL sonnet - rhyme and meter are impeccable. The topic is so poignant and lovely......I especially love "I lift my glass up to the weeping air"......and such lovely closing lines. Loved it.

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  3. Hi, I first wrote it a year ago. I re-wrote parts of it this afternoon:)

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  4. Sherry, Thank-you so much for your visit and your thoughts.

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  5. Yuriy: I've put the question 'cause I was impressed as you may guess. I'll borrow it for you to see the splendor in coalescence - later, when it assumes the shape. It'll take a certain time I think as the beauty needs it.

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  6. Yuriy: It came over even my expectations. There's a story of making, inexplicable and mystic. http://13poetry.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/splendor-in-coalescence/

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I hope you enjoyed your pause on this porch and thank-you for your visit!