March 8th, 2019:
It’s Friday morning. The sun’s shining, the air’s still quite
cold. We have a yard full of new snow. I
have been working on lyrical CNF essays and poems for several weeks now. Wrote a sonnet Wednesday, much to my
surprise. It’s a single sentence with
internal rhyme (another surprise), and it’s about the first day of Lent (yet, another
surprise). I have no idea what’s going on in my mind’s writing room these days,
why some things are so out of the blue, but this poem seems to be a gift.
Inspiration began with looking out the kitchen window, watching cardinals that
flit branch to branch in the crab apple tree, then make their way to our
feeders. I love watching the dance.
Sonnets are not my forte. Those
who are successful writing sonnets do so without any hint of cliché. I have
always felt the heft of cliché in my attempts. My hunches were confirmed by
poets(mentors) I trust. Yep, that isn’t
so good, they’d say. Consequently, I have steered away from sonnets.
However, I love reading them, and really I admire poet Henri Cole’s
sonnets. So gorgeous and witty and new. Some
critics have called these “pseudo-sonnet form.”
Doesn’t matter. All that matters
is I remember them. His words and images.