XXXIII

Don March 30th, 2009

XXXIII

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

            Let the minutes show that before concluding my senior year of college I felt compelled to attempt another short sonnet cycle.  Once again there are only three, and once again the last line of one becomes the first line of the next to tie the whole together.  It is obvious that I then thought that topical references from the recent Sixties would maintain their relevance forever.  It is also obvious that I was reading the metaphysical poets that year and had not yet sufficiently assimilated their exuberantly intellectual example into my own voice.  I hope it is also obvious that I was having loads of fun writing this.  I hope you can have a little reading it.

SONNET VII

If by a deep-voiced stream you chant the “om”

Or beneath carven stone the agnus Dei;

If you humbly bow before the Bomb,

Or if your thoughts turn to Rosemary’s Baby;

Or if you wonder “Why?”, conjecture “Maybe,”

And by Experiment your theories prove;

If noble Reason’s your exalted lady,

And mystic feelings never can you move;

If you say Eros, Amor, or Love,

Nirvana, Shan-ti, sweet Shalom, or Peace;

If to the earth you look, or heaven above,

Or to Da Vinci’s West or Krishna’s East

For answers that can satisfy your soul—

Then ask if they can really make you whole! 

VIII

The physic that can make a patient whole

Must be proportioned to his proper ills,

For letting blood goes not toward that goal

Unless with sanguine humors he’s o’erfilled.

But what if black, blood-mottled, murderous Sin,

Rebellion ‘gainst the Godhead’s rightful reign,

Be that sickness man hath fallen in,

Whose bloody issue flows from pride-swol’n veings?

Aye, then blood-letting shall we want indeed.

But, lest the patients with the treatment die,

Vicarious, perfect, infinite veins must bleed,

As Christ’s once did for us at Calvary.

For thus our cure was bought, at infinite cost,

When Christ was nailed to Calvary’s central cross.

IX

When Christ was nailed to Calvary’s central cross

And his bright blood flowed out, the Sun was pale,

For in the Son’s sunset the Sun was lost,

And thus in mourning, morning’s light was veiled;

And thus in darkness shrouded Phoebus sailed

Until in glory, bursting from his tomb

And having conquered Sin and Death and Hell,

The rising Son broke, shattered, split the gloom,

And at Son’s rising Sun’s light was resumed.

And angels sang, for in that light the day

When Sin and Death would meet their final doom

Was set, ordained, as Holy Scriptures say.

And still the light shines forth, though sometimes dim,

That then was kindled in Jerusalem.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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