Here are some sonnets I have written over the years.

I know that no one does this anymore---
To bind one's thoughts and words in chains of verse,
To bring to parlay heart and mind, whose curse
Has been to fight an endless, hopeless war.
To try to do so is to claim to act,
To live outside those mindless iron laws
That link to every captive thought a cause
And trace all passion's longing to some fact.

I cannot make such claims; instead I lay
My heart, my mind, my words, my very soul
Beneath the feet of You, the one who died.
Where I come short, Your love has found a way---
A joyful crimson stream that makes me whole---
The blood that issues from Your wounded side.

Quest

The shining, restless world appears once more,
To call me, reckless, from my tidy life,
To journeys, delvings, hopeless quests and strife,
To high adventures far from my safe door.
Tall mountains stand before me, clothed with white;
Long seas, full rivers, endless stretching plains;
Meadows fresh from springs and gentle rains,
Green forests, secret glades of dappled light.

So I fare forth, though wounded, old, and weak,
Knowing only that I face defeat,
That I shall die, not finding what I seek.
But what else can I do? I dare not wait.
I place my hope in this: that I might meet
Companions, friends, who wish to share my fate.

It's hard to find a sin that's really new,
A way to ruin one's life that's not been tried;
Though oft repeated, misery's plots are few;
And hell's one path by now is deep and wide.

But goodness spreads out all unknown before
Our blindered eyes, our dim, obsessive gaze,
We all can choose some new path to explore,
And find new joys to greet us all our days.

We do not see it, yet we claim to know
That good is easy, boring, and passe.
We say it's novel to go with the flow,
That freedom comes by throwing love away.

There is but one tree's fruit that makes us die,
Yet all of us believe the serpent's lie.

Morning

Sun and shadow, waking stillness, calm;
Excited birds now quiet in the light;
Cool air that only just has lost its bite---
That promises a warm and restful balm....

Wind chimes sing as breezes softly play
But slowly, as a dreamy echo fades;
A million leaves like tiny little shades
Attenuate the blazing light of day.

Like soft full blankets, pillows full of down,
Seducing to placidity and ease---
That muted light and sweetly scented breeze
In which ambition seems to sink and drown,

Seemingly to time and change immune,
Yet fragile, quickly banished by the noon.

Twilight

In between the sun and dark of night,
As mystery overtakes day's clarity,
And worlds unseen by day come into sight,
While things of normal life are hard to see---

We bid good bye to mundane thoughts and deeds;
Now comes the hero and the mystagogue---
The first whose heart on strife and glory feeds;
The other seeking deeper dialogue.

The twilight promise cannot, will not last;
The momentary glamour soon will fade;
The sun's last dying efforts soon are past,
And night's bleak kingdom's sable flag displayed.

And midst the strife and seeking comes the peace
Of sleep and sleep's great father, death's release.

Birthday

For Elanor

There's local time and universal time,
And mostly they are different. Which makes sense---
Since time as we perceive it seems to climb,
Like some great river's floods that fling us hence,

Or spread out, still and deep, to let us rest---
Yet even then deceitful, seeming slow,
But flowing quickly on its unknown quest,
Presenting us with scenes we do not know.

But universal time is always right
For joy and hope, and being who we are,
For loving one another in the light
And shining in the darkness like a star.

And like a star you always shone for me
Since first that moment when you came to be.