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.

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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.

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