Poetry Blog No 132 Three Sonnets on Life and Time- A Tree in the Wind, A Passing Sonnet, A Sonnet on Mutability

THREE SONNETS ON LIFE AND TIME- A TREE IN THE WIND, A PASSING SONNET, A SONNET ON MUTABILITY

The "Shakespearean" sonnet is an interesting form to develop imagery while creating a short "exposition" on a theme. This is partly due to its sectional rhyme scheme as I noted in a previous post - The first four lines (rhymed a,b,a,b) tend to introduce the subject, the next (c,d,c,d) develop the subject, the next four come to a sort of conclusion (e,f,e,f) and the last two lines, a rhyming couplet (g,g) bring it to a final conclusion or suddenly reverse the direction of the rest of the poem.

These three sonnets work this way with themes of life and time. 

 

photo- Mark Scrivener

                                         A TREE IN THE WIND

Against a swept, blue sky a flooded gum

Holds leafy branches to the morning wind,

And whispers, rustling in the breeze-fresh run,

The minute music that air's whirling spins.

There bright, alive in light, its many leaves

All shimmer in sun's white and winter blaze;

And billow, as the breath of heaven breathes,

In changing swirls of gleaming, leafy glaze.

How well it would be growing as a tree,

In time's unfolding from firm being's seed,

To stand in yielding power, firm but free,

Yet grounded in the good and knowing deed-

          A tree of life that time's calm living weaves,

          With strong and branching years and days as leaves.

A PASSING SONNET

Though when dusk sun is driven down to doom,

Its hushed, west passing hastens envious dark,

Though silent-cold, a falling winter's gloom

Will seal flower life to seed's near-sleeping spark,

Though fury, whirled from wind's life-bringing breath,

Is lost, exhausted by its sky-spent climb;

And minutes moving always towards my death

Will twist its change through all my weave of time,

Though when a fire has flickered out its flame,

Its once-awoken, embered burning fades,

And once alive, the now-departed's fame

Will die away to memories' paling shades. . .

     Yet self's unseen and lasting being stays

     And bears the memories of passing days.

SONNET ON MUTABILITY

Is time a ceaseless river ever-flowing?

A wind upon illimitable vastness;

The fleeting moment fleeing, ever-going?

A failing glow pursued by hungry darkness?

Or like the phoenix from the flames new-winged?

Or like the flower that fruits and ripens seed?

The ever-new and ever-gathering,

The metamorphosing, the ever-freed?

And though to outer sense what's passed is past,

There is an endless freeing in time's passing;

But nothing's lost or spent. Deep in the heart

Of all that is there lives the ever-lasting:

           Dark follows day, but day breaks forth from night;

          And living years are pilgrims to the light.