Sonnets on the theme of Nature

“A Sonnet" (On Reading a New Study Concluding
That Marriage is, After all, the Best Way to Secure
Long Term Happiness)

by Dr. Timothy E.G. Bartel

The institutions were so ancient that
We did not see them holding up our lives.
The ropes that we wrapped tight, smoothed flat,
Seemed thoughtless instinct; words like husbands, wives, 
We took for granted, called them weary things
Whose time had come for needed reinvention.
The mind is its own place, it rips and flings
The scaffolds cluttering its free dimension.
Then all falls down, of course. The ancient songs
Of sorrow in a wasteland gain new sense. 
We should have held our duties close and long,
Constructing walls of pleasure and defense.
I am still holding on—you hold me too.
To hold’s the only way of getting through.
—

“Resurgence”

by Sölvör Bjarna

This city is the greenwood’s battlefield,
Where onslaught of the hammer-wielding keen
Has render’d obdurate walls from mossy weald –
Carved carapaces, gleaned from evergreen.
Razed is the verdure erstwhile rampant here,
As now the soil is chastened by the wheel –
Once-rushing rills chafed dry ’neath asphalt sere,
And e’en the air ensnared in wires of steel.
Behold, though, where a dark root rends in twain,
As eldern hand, unweaving what was wrought,
Sends forth a bramble-charge that will not wane,
Sets ivy-fire upon the framework fraught –
For even under siege of man’s endeavour,
The dauntless, deathless green resurges ever. 
— 

“An Answer to Yeats”

by Sarah Cline

I will go with Fergus then
He who calls from wood and shade
From cathedral-coronated field and fen
And stained-glass shadow-dappled glade.
Though I am old, too old for whimsy,
Still I hear the faintest whisper from the dark
Of a thing unfinished between the wild and me
Between oak and elm, and finch and lark.
For the light lies softly on the hills,
In brooding rain-lands, burial-mounded,
Far and far from my present house, yearning fills
The song of my blood, forever-resounded.
For I have no dragons at which to tilt my sword
But even now, and ever, let the green god be my ward.
— 

“Summer Friends”
by Carlo Porta (15 June 1775 – 5 January 1821)

translated from the Milanese by D.A. Cooper

Cheer up! The summer isn’t far away,
and with it come the scorpions and fleas;
mosquitos, flies, ants, hornets, wasps, and bees;
moths, bedbugs, ticks; they all are here to stay.
O you poor little creatures, join us please!
Come bite us, suck our blood, all night and day;
shit on our dishes and our heads; we pray,
eat up our clothes and all our bread and cheese.
Do as you like, dear little ones. The least
that we can do for you is let you run
amuck; do what you want, sweet little beasts.
And if by summer’s end you are not done,
feel free to go in wintertime and feast
on those who think that summer is such fun.
—

“Some Secret Garden”

by Lee Evans

To us the winter’s end is signified
By Hylas croaking from the budding trees,
Their song like sleigh bells, after having climbed
From hibernation underneath the leaves
And broken branches toward the sunny heights,
Their vocal sacs swelled up with evening air.
Their chorus chants of such romantic nights
As you and I remember, when our care
Was for some secret garden and embrace,
Where what we took to be our hearts and minds
Succumbed to Nature and pursued a trace
Of fleeting passion as we pulsed through time.
We dreamed it in the ice of our repose,
Our sleigh bells frozen underneath the snow.
—

“Colloquy”

by Daniel Fitzpatrick

Come now, clean and melancholy dove.
Quit the unsung water of their anguish.
Speak low, and let the rumored beats above
upbraid the bitter cities which languish
in an agony of awful musing.
Slip beneath my shoulder now. Slit my side.
Sip this ingemminate life infusing 
you with you as you had been till the pride
of the beautiful firedrake flecked your eyes.
Think not of what can’t cross the cleansing stream,
but touch that chain that sounds the deepest skies,
knowing nothing is as nothing ever seems.
Peace—this sorrow’s piercing sweetness remains,
converting ampler griefs by simpler pains.
— 

“Aims and Ends”

by Janice Katz

Like most intentions yours possessed a spark
of promise, said ‘forever’ with one breath.
Provided paint to saturate the stark
dry canvas which had come before. Made death
of former ways. Seducer with a charm,
creating darkly beautiful vignettes,
your story-telling able to disarm
suspicion. Nimbly hedging every bet.
But weakness hovered there along your brow
pervading even wink and winning smile.
Questioning whether you’d survive, and how
when darkness pressed or terror stayed awhile.
Despite beguiling promises and song
The longest race is only for the strong.

— 

“Work and Returning”

by Arthur Malory

That bell’s rung far too many times this year,
Too many hands on that damnable horn;
Magic is in our palm, a holy seer—
Not that it helps, for Time is always shorn.
Life washes in, a hurling seawave
Mighty in its tidal lapses lapping out;
Zipping giants breathe close shaves—
They would kill me, clearly, without a doubt,
But for lanes, close lanes, of civility.
Oh, the dear bark and the lively complaint,
In the cherished land of hostility—
A pert smile to hide pain beneath paint,
Till the hours tick by on Fortune’s Plate,
And shadow lengthens the road’s adumbrate.

— 

"Bereft"

by Jacquelyn Shah

So many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
—Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”

All are taken, there are none left—
loving believers in tender looks and smiles,
takers of oaths to tramp across the miles,
up mountains, through the oceans, for the theft
of one uncommon heart. We’re all bereft.
Who undertakes amours with style?
Who serenades, writes sonnets? Who beguiles?
Our Romeos, our Juliets aren’t so deft,
can’t comprehend the nuances of star-crossed.
Most ever-afters last a year or two,
and if you stand alone, forsaken lamb
and go on bleating, all is lost,
some booming voice’ll cut right through your brou-
haha! That plaint’s been heard, and heard, ad nauseam.

“Sonnet on the Hawaiian Tree”

by Stefanie Kate M. Watchorna

Grant I've never seen a comforting sight
Nor have I seen petals more lambent than
The warm flickering flames of candlelight.
By comparison, the Sun’s rays are wan
To the silky sheen of these orange flowers.
All the beacons and lighthouses that stood
Cannot guide me through the storms and showers
As well as these bright, blazing embers would.
When the world has made me wary and worn,
I lay my eyes upon this growing bloom
And correlate it to the dawning morn
Dispelling all the darkness that once loomed.
Thus through life’s tempestuous seas I glide
Safely led to port by this lamp and guide.