Finishing my 365 Sonnets Project

Well, today I'm finishing a year of posting one sonnet a day. This is something I did once before (not posting them to a blog, but composing one sonnet daily for over three years, between 1998-2001).  I've drawn upon some of those earlier sonnets to supply this round, and I've also occasionally featured a classic poet's sonnet, or a sonnet by one of my students. But by and large, it's been my own new creation every day since February 28, 2010. (Here's the full index in case you're interested).

Many of these sonnets have been imitations (43, in fact), with my major topical categories going to religion (75) and nature (46). Some 19 have been written to or about my wife (my "uxorious" category) and another 5 about marriage. Many of my sonnets are reflective (25), philosophical (32), or even abstract (21). But there are also some 25 humorous sonnets, often about food (21). You can see the full list of tags on the side of the blog.

I just added the Popular Posts widget, something that if I'd put up earlier might have changed some of my writing choices. How do people find and read this little niche blog? Hard to say. Why do some sonnets get read more than others? A puzzle.

Gifts

Gifts
by Gideon Burton

“So much has been given to me, I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied.”

-- Helen Keller

Among the highest gifts He's given, these:
the absence of His richest, present being;
the silence of the speaking God; release
from certainty, from daylight's darkest seeing;
mundane and everyday in every day;
unanswered prayers, tears soaked into tears
spread over under inbetween the rays,
those sudden-quiet silences that spear
the swollen soggy sorry saddened fright
with peace unearned, with grace anointing eye
and ear and swollen knees and blurry sight
and staunching blasphemies no use to try.
     So much remains when all the rest elides;
     So many gifts through light that is denied.

Photo: flickr - mooste

The Art of Prayer

The Art of Prayer
by Gideon Burton

The asking that outlasts the asking, knock
and seek and wait and search the cracks of day
for remnant revelations in the spray
of minutes measuring the spinning clock--
The burn of yearning, learning how to lock
that ache to see to know to feel to pray
in underwhispers pressing through the grey
and weighted waiting for the lifting fog--
The purge and clean of desert hungers set
and settled, finding sweet each droplet spare
and clear enough to know that in the air
so sharply dry suspended moisture mists
if we are still, if we are small, if wet
with thirsting we can feel the Spirit's kiss. 

Photo: flickr - Nikky Stephen

Eye

Eye
by Gideon Burton

The retina cannot retain the flow,
the fuchsia-ochre-teal-vermillion millions,
the torqued geometries, the crystal's cracks,
the holy heights or blurry-blotched civilians.
And even if some fragments loosen, lift
and shift and warp, released by dreaming's drift,
the pupils widen in that hollow rift,
and weave fresh fantoms; such is vision's thrift.
Too many prophets got the scene they begged.
"Behold": be old before the awe subsides,
the freight of light, not light, and razor-edged.
It can't contract, not once the vision's wide.
     The strobe and stroke of photons stains and twists.
     To see: to sink in vistas void of mists.

Photo: flickr - Robert D Bruce

Slow Miracles

Slow Miracles
by Gideon Burton

To count, it seems, a miracle is sudden,
so deviating from what we expect;
spectacular, our doubting senses flooded,
immediate and palpable, direct.
For these, we wait, and when they come, we bow
before divinity among us strong.
Some miracles, however, are not now;
amazing, still, though their arrival's long:
nine months, a human life assembled new;
a golden wedding's victory over self;
a habit, years dismantled, till it's through;
a softened heart that's measured for its wealth.
     To live in constant awe before His face
     requires a pace in sync with constant grace.

Picture: flickr - Nathan O'Nions

The Language of the Sky

The Language of the Sky
by Gideon Burton

Forget the patterned ink that stains your books;
you need to learn the language of the sky,
to read the streaming evening as it cooks
the creamy cloud banks till they steam and fry
in silent streaking amber, clots of felt,
inverted seas of textured, tissued fire.
You need to parse the colors as they melt:
the code for ochre as the light retires,
the cues for blue vanilla made opaque,
for indigo, for charcoal's smeary smoke.
You need the signs and syntax for the ache
remaining, how to throttle absence cloaked
by moonless midnight, tightened like a scroll
in hieroglyphics only God controls.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - burnblue