Day 47, Sonnet 47

Awake! Let dawn’s new light proclaim His life

And so, in turn, proclaim our lives as well.

Let faith and hope o’ertake this pain and strife

And strike down death itself with death’s own knell.

Each morning will a Resurrection be;

When sleepy eyes wash nightmares from their view,

When hardened hearts bloom in serenity,

When deep forgiveness bids hatred adieu.

For love transcends all colour, faith, and creed

And new beginnings are each human’s right

For love of God does Church and State exceed

For saintly love is mercy ‘midst our plight.

Though it is finished[1], let this end begin

A life where holy love resides within.

---

[1] John 19:30

Day 46, Sonnet 46

An Alleluia sounds into the night

As souls stand vigil past the dusky hour.

The Lumen Christi does each heart ignite

With Resurrection’s overwhelming power.

For in the night where fear entombs the mind

The prospect of awaking to new days

Can shroud His hope and leave poor souls resigned

To living death: to melancholy’s maze.

Let Kyrie be whispered in the dark

When frightened spirits fear their Saviour’s death;

Let Gloria be Hope’s enduring spark;

Let faith alone provide restoring breath.

When purple veils of Passiontide descend

Our Vigil’s flame will inky night transcend.

Day 45, Sonnet 45

A crown of thorns encircles every head

Who bravely bears their crosses on this earth

Who as their souls’ own captors are self-led

In Justice’ name to undergo rebirth.

For Jesus’ Passion teaches us to bear

With holy strength the sorrows of this life:

To let our faith each bleeding wound repair,

To learn the value of a sacrifice.

For with each step we make on our own Ways of Grief

The Blessed Feet have cleared the path before.

Emerging from the throngs to bring relief,

He fights in our name our sorrows' war.

Let spirits not by selves be crucified;

Let gratitude for Life be Mercy’s guide.

Day 44, Sonnet 44

Communion is not bread nor wine alone;

It is the meeting of like minds and hearts.

It is a sacred bond of hearth and home

Where unity is made from dis’parate parts.

It is to offer freely one’s own flesh

And love in generosity at Jesus’ table

To soothe another’s wounds, to offer rest,

To be forsworn in trust ‘gainst cruel betrayal.

For every supper could be supper last,

When slings and arrows threaten our brief lives.

By Jesus’ spirit we are over-passed:

In bonded love, community survives.

In remembrance of each other, let us pray;

And through Communion praise this maundy day.

Day 43, Sonnet 43

We fragile souls pursue dramatic life

With tragedy enacted on our stage

Where trivial pursuits transform to strife

And loss accumulates with passing age.

But drama does consist of livéd days

Where sorrow does enclose in time and space

To make out shadows in this human haze

Where gravitas does gentle hope replace.

But peace and love do transcend minds and bones

And open into Heaven’s wide expanse

Where e’en joy sparks fear of the unknown

And peace leaves mortal mind entranced.

Fear not Communion’s limitless embrace

For boundlessness is holy saving grace.

Day 42, Sonnet 42

A child’s innocence may be destroyed

By other persons’ acts of cruelty,

By careless words that open gaping voids,

Or violence that leaves psychic debris.

But losses, too, can mar a child’s world

As tiny hands contain such helplessness

And sorrow’s tendrils ‘round a heart is curled

As days of joy become days of distress.

But tender hearts can heal as years go by

As wisdom is the gift of passing time

So too, can one’s forgiveness sanctify

The grief from death, or shame from thoughtless crime.

In ancient sorrow, youth’s wonder still resides:

Let agéd hearts still bless the child inside.

Day 41, Sonnet 41

To Lethe wharf do take me, lovèd one,
And drown me in that foggy-water depth.
You’ll know, my love, when your sweet deed is done
For lack of bubbles means a lack of breath.
I’ve supped and supped from old Mnemosyne
And ne’er can dry her dampness from my brain;
So thus I hear brave Lethe calling me
To plunge into forgetfulness again.
So dip me into the ambrosian blue
And fear not when the blankness taints my face
For ‘tis an anesthetic that seeps through
To numb the bruisèd mind with utmost grace.
So though you to a death do bear me forth
You bring me life again at Lethe’s wharf.

[This is a sonnet I wrote nearly three years ago, but it aptly summarizes the soul-ache that plagues my soul at times, and I could not have re-written it any better.]

Day 40, Sonnet 40

This loneliness leaves panic in its wake;

A restlessness is bred in solitude.

To sit with one’s own thoughts and one’s own aches

Results in pain’s perceivéd magnitude.

But sitting with the self requires time,

It is a skill that is not quickly learned.

The self requires patience giv’n in kind

Where love is offered freely, and not earned.

For though we travel roads with company

The road soon forks and we must carry on

The only steadfast pilgrim is the “me”

That has so many battles proudly won.

Fear not the nights or days one spends alone

For in a calméd self one finds one’s home.

Day 39, Sonnet 39

Some souls do bear extraordinary gifts:

Some children bear the wisdom of old age;

Some athletes’ strides are powerfully swift;

Some poets’ words paint life upon the page.

But genius or talent does endow

With burdens that do weigh upon the heart

When onlookers do wholly disavow

The pain that does accompany one’s art.

For giftedness is not of iron made;

It is a blossomed bud with tender leaves

That hears the heavens’ call and does obey

But burns like fire beneath a gentle summer breeze.

For gifts do hum at higher frequency

Their songs of joy are wrought with misery.

Day 38, Sonnet 38

Some women dress in humble black alone:

Poor widows or the sacred wives of Christ.

To wear these somber clothes from sorrow sewn

Is to avert the world’s too-piercing eyes.

For colours do draw eager vision’s gaze

Compelled by dashing reds or soothing blues

The vibrant heart is by their joy amazed

As worlds take shape in colours’ brilliant hues.

But fear remains when black is safety’s shade,

The sullen soul’s protective carapace.

To suddenly be not of darkness made

Can blind as tincture does this void erase.

Let mourning end, and cast off sorrow’s clothes

And with this prism’s hues one’s heart enclose.

Day 37, Sonnet 37

Perfection is a limitless pursuit

That does the mortal self wholly ensnare

It is temptation of forbidden fruit

That leads to one path only; to despair.

For though I was as perfect child born,

With language I do fall in sophistry;

With sentiment I hurt, or wound, or scorn,

With blinded eyes I cannot rightly see.

For fragile life cannot achieve perfection

Try as I might to transcend mortal flaws:

A faultless life is life without affection

For love alone does break precision’s laws.

The paragons of virtue are the souls

Who by their love of flaws are rendered whole

Day 36, Sonnet 36

I wish to craft my future with my hands

And keep in strict control my destiny;

But Providence does offer other plans

And wrestles with supposed mastery.

For I cannot a lonely island be[1]

And wash myself from Mankind’s gentle shore

Nor keep in silence for eternity

And gentle Guider’s loving hands ignore.

For I was fashioned perfect in His eye;

My life’s vocation is to simply be:

To love, to laugh, to breathe, to sleep, to cry;

To hold up faith ‘gainst cruel uncertainty.

What lies ahead is by my heart unknown

But certainty does lie in faith alone.

---

[1] John Donne, “Meditation XVII,” (1624).

Day 35, Sonnet 35

Too quickly does this world around me spin:

No longer can I keep myself upright.

The cyclone’s vortex rises from within

And makes of solid ground a dizzying height.

I cannot find a place to rest my head

For even with eyes closed I lose my breath.

This constant motion builds a rising dread

That makes me wish for sleep’s façade of death.

But I alone must choose to disembark

From hurt and envy’s quick carnival ride;

And I alone can bring light to this dark,

And let my inner truth be calmness’ guide.

Though twisted turns are in this widening gyre[1]

I do to stillness’ gentle peace aspire.

---

[1] William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming,” (1920), line 1.

Day 34, Sonnet 34

They say that writers write their livéd truth,

For it is that which drives them to despair

The regrets of their age; sorrows of youth

These are the tales that poets must declare.

But words on pages cannot be retrieved

Once thrust into another’s waiting hands

And one can often be crudely deceived:

For cruel words can burn like brutal brands.

But e’en in spite of pain, truth must come out

For kept within, it kills one’s very soul

It starves the poet’s voice in cruel drought

And buries speech into a blackened hole.

Write on, though words like knives may cut and bleed

And let your life through written speech be freed.

Day 33, Sonnet 33

A rape is not a crime of flesh alone:

It transcends to the spirit’s very core.

It melts the marrow of one’s very bones

And washes faith out from the stranded shore.

A rape is not a metaphor of text

For ravaged forests or polluted streams.

It is a crime of violence, not of sex

A ravage of one’s sacred hopes and dreams.

But rape need not the death of spirit be

For strength is bred when violence is survived

One act alone need not one’s life decree:

For best revenge is to remain alive.

Time does heal wounds in bodies and in minds;

Brave souls lead not their lives by rape defined.

Day 32, Sonnet 32

How quietly do memories appear;

How steathily they move in dark of night.

When hearts are tender in their sleepy fear,

Anxiety invades with frightening might.

The mind will dwell on actions not performed

Or ruminate on words too quickly said

The hands will shake when brittle bones are stormed

As recollection rears its ugly head.

But past is past and only past can be

Though formative its traumas may become.

Long gone are foes or fickle enemies

The battlefield’s abandoned; wars are done.

Let thoughts not be the realm where fear resides

But rather be terrain where peace abides.

Day 31, Sonnet 31

While knowing who’s imprisoned in this cell,

I cannot bear to hold the Jailer’s key;

Familiar is the pris’ner that there dwells:

That cruelly-punished wretch…that wretch is me.

For I have beaten welts into my flesh

And starved myself with meagre food and drink

With little dignity I have been left

As I push my poor soul near to the brink.

The pain that I inflict is ever more

Than any captor could enact as punishment

I am my own kept prisoner of war

And have too oft been whipped ‘til I repent.

Although I appear bound, it is my choice

To die in silence or to use my voice.

Day 30, Sonnet 30

Just as the Child is Father of the Man[1],

So is the Teacher by her Students taught,

When lessons do veer from the careful plan

And wisdom is revealed in brand-new thought.

For though she is much by her training formed

In knowledge’ path she far-too-often falls

But hopeful views have much her cold heart warmed

When cynic’s theories do her patience stall.

Though she does wield the stamp of learning’s ends

The means of knowledge seep between her hands

Experience can this bookish thought transcend

And pull from tangled knots newly freed strands.

Let not the span of years one’s learning cease

For taught by Pupils, Teachers’ views increase.

---

[1] William Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold,” (1802), line 7.

Day 29, Sonnet 29

The Lord does trace my steps when I do stray

In steady stride to catch me when I fall

His hand against my back to stop my sway

His open heart to hear my strangled call.

With turnéd back alone I cannot live

For I must learn to follow, let Him lead

With closéd eyes, my faith to Him I give

Take comfort in a heart by Jesus freed.

I may, at times, strike out alone and walk

Just like a child intent on leaving home

But He shall wait as ships do wait at docks

And not depart whilst I remain alone.

The Way of Grief has cleared a path to tread

With faith my blinded eyes see light ahead.

Day 28, Sonnet 28

Must God be found within the Church alone,

In rites performed by fragile human hands?

Does sacrament save hearts still formed of stone?

Does prayer outwit one’s selfish, vain demands?

By souls that claim to know His holy Word

I have been scorned and duly cast aside

But Jesus’ love in me is not deferred

For He alone serves as my Lord and Guide.

The Lord is not by walls of concrete bound

Nor fixed by time nor words from cleric’s lips

God is the sky, the sun, the air, the ground

He is the anchor of our spirits’ wand’ring ships.

A Church is built within my very soul

Its strong foundations keep my spirit whole.

Day 27, Sonnet 27

The forkéd road does seemingly present

The choice to leave untrodden one sole path

As though a road were from the heavens sent

To map our storied lives from first to last.

But human hands do form these thoroughfares

Though grandeur does this simple fact obscure

Geography is but one pathway there

Direction does not travels’ joy ensure.

The heart’s a trusty compass, for it knows

That true North can be skewed by magnets’ roam

But soon it rights itself and quickly shows

That ‘tis the inner journey that leads home.

Tread on, and know, ‘tis not the way you take

But steady strides that leave doubt in their wake.

Day 26, Sonnet 26

When days begin before the breaking dawn

A quiet darkness keeps the fear at bay

Awareness of one’s breath with waking yawn

Helps calmness to sustain the looming day.

Then brightness comes and blinds the shaded heart

Which wished to stay where dusk and dawn collide

For sun reveals its many broken parts

Which glimmer in the beams of morning light.

But night will come again and with it, rest,

As fragile souls seek solace in the dark

Survival of each day is truly blessed:

The nightingale depends upon the lark.

Sleep soundly, for the days will stead’ly pass

And troubled hearts will find their time at last.

Day 25, Sonnet 25

The city’s skin is tender to the touch

With concrete cracks in pavement’s flesh of gray.

The blinding sun reveals almost too much

When bones of steel do glitter on display.

The tow’ring glass reflects the passersby

Who rarely look to see their mirrored mouths

Nor meet with glance a stranger’s friendly eyes

As bodies move from north to west to south.

This city breathes: a heaving sort of gasp

As horns exhale and echoes lose their sound

E’en pleasant sounds become a vicious rasp;

Cacophony treads patience to the ground.

When cities loom and wavering mouths constrain

Hear keenly for humanity’s refrain.

Day 24, Sonnet 24

If fools rush in where angels fear to tread[1]

Then I walk not on any hallowed ground.

No wings, but dunce’s cap I wear instead

And blindly walk in circles, ‘round and ‘round.

But foolishness is not an idle life

If playfulness trumps sternly furrowed brows

For lightened hearts do temper cruel strife

And in a frightened state, can courage rouse.

For one man’s fool is yet another’s sage

As wisdom often does appear aloof

The seriousness of this still too-grave age

Requires fools as sheer survival’s proof.

If fools take risks, let chance our minds inspire

For what we risk reveals our hearts’ desires.

---

[1] Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 625.