Travail of a Poem...a sonnet

 

When your hour comes there’s an ache surreal

Where thought cannot quell the urge you beseech

Grasping at whispers just beyond my reach

I close my eyes, leaning to your appeal

As unformed longing groans, moans for release

Borne on a surge of pleading mystery

Pain, pleasure and purpose blend intimately

Stoking a measure of formless increase

For your invocation of throbbing travail

Rushes in torrents through bulwarks of flesh

Testing heart-levees, boldly you enmesh

Your ethereal murmurs beneath skin’s frail veil

I tremble for, pray, who am I to spell

The poem to shape your relentless swell?

Somewhere within wanton fathoms converge

The startling summons of consonants lash

Nature of mortal and immortal clash

Yet who would rally to stifle the surge

Of word that is willing to be much more

And hope that is yearning to spill in rhyme?

I cannot argue with trifles like Time

Where oceans of unwoven lines implore

Man is not born to appease his own want

Or drift like a bateau without port or goal

Though lackadaisical havens may taunt

We are the vessels that harbor a soul

Earnestly then, we bend into the gale

Trusting the Hand on our helm to prevail

The fruit of our toil is more dear and sweet

When we have endured its labor and fear

What is life’s spoil but a day or a year?

A pulse of moments that never repeat

Humbly we bow, not because we are weak

But because in weakness Love intercedes

Succoring mortal and immortal needs

The pen would fall like a tear on the cheek

Save for the comfort that somewhere, somehow

Far down the age its extolment remains

To smile to the one who thirsts for the rains

Found in the ink-drops that earnestly flow

Shaping the whispers of comfort and Home

Wrapped in the tender-sweet arms of a poem

© Janet Martin

It's no use...one cannot fight the urge of a poem:)