Posts tagged sonnets

Absorbing errands are the key, James said,

For stationing joy’s locus in the heart.

Can this be mere distraction from dark dread,

Or does achievement play some honest part

In happiness?  Old Ockham took a blade

To spoiled woods, and hacking down the old

And rotten trees cut clear a path to aid

Us in our listening, when truth is told.

Thus errands, roads, and woods do journeys make.

A journey’s in the walking, not the end

Nor at the start.  A million middles take

Us cyclically along the best bound bend.

Though every generation might refuse,

Out best laid labors lie in our use.

-Greg

There’s heavy-hanging heft in that word: desk.

A stable, steady stone not on the pate

But nonetheless oppressive in its weight

That in not touching’s all the more grotesque.

It crouches not unlike an obelisk

Upon a grave.  But who has died? First mate,

Fond friend, free will is buried here, his wait

For heav’n criminally Kafkaesque.

Yet on the wall, sans church bells, hangs the clock

Which yet portends the clement close of day.

No chimes will ring when all the proles disband,

But music will be made by feet that walk

Without a maestro’s guide. Tonight, men say,

“For now, I’m mine, and I won’t sit. I’ll stand.”

-Greg