The First Week of March, 2019, Racing towards Spring . . .

March 8^th, 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.