Life Tide
A sonnet on being middle-aged and indolent
A sonnet is truly a writing challenge. This is the first one I ever wrote, and no doubt, the last. Life Tide first appeared in Leaves in November 2021. I hope you enjoy it again.
Life Tide
These hours, unbound by clocks, my thoughts fly free
from care and debt, from haste and stifled rage.
Lift this gloom, you drowsy, rolling sea!
This weight, this dreadful drag of flesh and age!
—
Here sighs the salt-marsh grass, yet I the more
for blesséd rest and honey-sweet repose.
I nod and fade on this pine-ragged shore,
as sun-swooned cats on door sills lightly doze,
—
with thoughts of rodents lame and flightless birds.
A bunch-grass bed now takes me to a dream —
each ghost, each passing beam, now softly blurred,
obscured by rocky floor and tidal stream.
—
Sea-clouds scrape across the sky today.
Herons cry above the sleepy bay.
Lovely. A sonnet is a challenging form to write, the literary equivalent to riding one of those bikes with the huge front wheel and the tiny rear wheel.
I wrote a sonnet once about my pregnant dog trying to get child support from the cad who did the deed. Probably not high art, but I passed the class.
And maybe when I depart this mortal coil, someone will discover it and canonize me as the Hillbilly Shakespeare.
One can dream.
Enjoyed this, Sharron! Might you reconsider writing more sonnets?