Sonnettics

Retreating snow is rushing through the stream
until it stops to crack the frozen stone
before proceeding on through winter’s dream
of alternating rhythms—if I’d known—
The sunless, mottled sky is still as gray
as death upon the barren, leafless trees
which wait in wisdom, wait until the day
when they will be delivered—still I freeze.
I know that spring is coming; it has come,
returned in glory, conquered every frost
of winter that has ever made me numb
to memories of warmth and warmth I’d lost.
Yet if I’d known, believed in winter’s end,
would I still freeze? Would I have lost my friend?

Asleep inside the warmth of nothing new,
I pause to find a word which might suffice
Although to pause the dream obscures the view
Sufficiently to fill the vision twice.
At first I find a window fringed with frost
To stare beyond and through into the night
And though the heat of movement paused is lost
The view below inspires me to flight.
And next I watch the window disappear
And feel the cold of night come flooding in,
And then I lean beyond the ledge to peer
Into the dark to feel the warmth again,
To hear the echoed songs I used to sing
And sleep within the pause the echoes bring.

My hope is to be found when I am lost
In place or time, in reverie or thought
By my own will or circumstances tossed
Into that realm where wanderers are caught
Between confusion’s gate and some broad field
I see myself alone and turned around
The stars by clouds are suddenly concealed
And I am staring blankly at the ground
I need an angel’s prayers to guide my feet
I need an angel’s wings to guard my heart
An angel’s song would never sound as sweet
As when it’s sung while we are far apart
What hand will find my hand and be my guide?
What angel comes to stand here by my side?

Specifically the rain on Palmer Road,
And every stride from there to Enders Farm,
Compels my sloshing Nike’s and their load
Like volunteers on hearing their alarm.
I see their trucks parked backwards in their drives
And wonder if those seconds ever failed.
I pass a hundred houses filled with lives
Of breath and blood and dreams left un-assailed.
I can’t imagine fire in this rain,
Except the burning muscles in my thighs.
And so my thoughts retreat to petty pain
As rain-diluted-sweat-drops fill my eyes.
At F-M High I push my mired pace
Specifically toward next year’s Green Lakes race.

I’m positive my neighbors do not know–
How ignorant vicinity can be
When whispered voices keep the secret low,
Suppressed by fear-compelled complacency.

I found my neighbor lying in a ditch,
Half dead, a little girl of nine or ten,
Passed by three times, a travesty by which
I saw the ‘righteousness’ of ‘righteous’ men.

You knew that she was dying here alone!
You knew you had the means to save her life!
My god, this little sister is your own!
Your mother, and your daughter, and your wife!

And all she needs to raise her from the dead
Is for the world to all start seeing red.

I smelled Fort Bragg in 1984
this morning in my silver Jeep while dressed
in my un-camouflaged blue suit. I swore
I’d never be a businessman. My best
guess was I’d wear the green beret for life.
And yet, as I drove through the slow school zone,
not half a click from where the only knife
I use sits on my desk, beside my phone,
to keep my fingers free of paper cuts
from envelopes, I swear I caught a whiff
of diesel mingled with that canvas must
that used to make me homesick. It’s as if
some static line is still attached to me
and I can’t make the jump to tear it free.

Pretentious bitch, you whisper in my ear,
as “bitch-so-named” stands up to scattered claps.
She looks the whore. I’ll bet she fucks for beer,
you snort, as “two-bit-whore” adjusts her straps.
I heard she got her tits just for tonight–
and “plastic-jugs” ascends the podium.
She’s still the poster child for cellulite,
I’m told, to your invective’s steady hum.
Can you believe she’s getting this award?
It goes to show the judges have no taste.
Look, look–her boyfriend’s even getting bored.
It’s such a waste. It’s such a fucking waste!
I sit in silence, listen, nod my head,
and wish that you had won the prize instead.

I felt like god from eighteen stories high
above St. Paul the winter that I died.
I didn’t jump; to jump would be to fly.
But pieces of me fell each night I cried.
And on the nights when I was smooth as glass,
while framed in darkness, focused on one light,
I felt the time, the time that wouldn’t pass,
and watched the sinners from my godly height.
Below me in the park they bought and sold
their chemicals to ease their bodies pain.
Their cloudy breath proclaimed the living cold.
Some nights it snowed, some nights just freezing rain.
Epiphany was all the help I sought;
but death and god was all the help I got.

I still recall the roar of Hercules,
whose engines drowned the sound of sergeant’s voice.
I still recall the weakness of my knees,
to face the open door and make a choice.
But I had really made my choice before.
When sergeant yelled “stand up” I chose to stand,
unsteady on the aircraft’s pitching floor,
though ready for the rest of his commands.
As Sergeant Airborne took my static line,
and as I placed my hands outside the bird,
I knew the silver wings would soon be mine,
as soon as sergeant yelled one final word.
The light turned green; the drop zone was below,
and all I heard was sergeant holler: “Go!”

My legs are not my legs, they are my wings,
The power of my horizontal flights
Above the pavement clouds. Such graceful things
As birds look down from simple jealous heights.
My legs are not my legs, they are my wings,
They split the rushing chaos of the wind
And push it side to side. Such striding flings
The eddied air awash and far behind.
It’s true my feet are cadenced on the ground
Which rises like a challenge to the pace.
But quicker than they fall, my feet rebound,
And like a wingtip, barely leave a trace.
For gravity and I have drawn a truce,
And though it holds, I feel it breaking loose.

This sonnet is available in my book, “26.2 Sonnets for Runners.”