I don’t often write poetry. And a sonnet is truly challenging. This is the first one I’ve written, and no doubt it will be the last. Life Tide first appeared on Leaves in November 2022. I hope you enjoy it again.
Below the sonnet is a 50-word version written for
, at for one of his Fifties by The Fire challenges.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, a honey-sweet repose.
I nod and fade on this pine-ragged shore,
as sun-swooned cats on door sills lightly doze,
with dreams of rodent lame and flightless bird.
A bunch-grass bed now takes me to a dream —Â
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.
And this is a 50-word version, written for Justin Deming’s Fifties by the Fire
Sunday Morning, Maine
The clock is stopped today, hours are free from care and toil. Blessed am I, with well-earned rest.
Dozing by a drowsy sea, I am content as a sun-swooned cat who dreams of flightless birds and rodents fat.
Sea clouds scrape across the sky. Above the surf — a heron’s cry!
Beautiful Sharron. Both versions. Sonnet is an especially challenging form but you have pulled it off wonderfully.
That sun-swooned cat knows something!! It turns up not only in your sonnet, but your 50 words...it's my 3 words of the day...
Ahh, but if only I were forever sun-swooned...