Sonnettics

She sings to help the living and the dead
She sings to help the poets find their song
Tis Brigid of Kildare who fills my head
And shows the words I write where they belong

She told me once of Coventina’s sin
She told me Coventina fell in love
A mortal man whose name she said was Finn
A poet’s story Brigid told me of

I wrote it down to honor it and her
A story made of words that must be told
Upon my page the words I did confer
I picture her as never growing old

A poet and a muse, with long red hair
She comes to me as Brigid of Kildare

I found a sonnet on my path today
Ironically it sat right on the trail
Just past the point where nuts would often lay
I often forage words to no avail

But this time I picked up a whole damn verse
The squirrels had passed it by like something bad
A nut with weevil larvae or much worse
I guess they didn’t see it like I had

I heard the sonnet fall through autumn leaves
I heard it just before the bridge, the brook
Inviting me to cross what it believes
That sonnets may be found if one will look

I think i heard the brook call out my name
A forager, a sonneteer, the same.

I walk a path adorned by fallen leaves
It must be autumn now, the air is crisp
A treasure trove of colors, not for thieves
Although I steal their colors like a wisp

A wisp of little metaphors, all mine
Oh look, the final sigh of maple’s breath
The trees prepare to sleep; the trees are fIne
The forest path is not the way through death

I walk this living path to comprehend
That life is full of seasons to enjoy
These vibrant colors do not mark an end
They simply show the art the trees employ

The pathway bearing leaves, a living thing
Reminds me they’ll be back again in Spring.

I’m not just some “damn yankee” in my mind
I’ve foraged all across this fruitful land
I find great joy in everything I find
Yes, even if it’s not what I had planned

I’ve foraged oysters from the Puget Sound
I forage nuts New England loves to share
In Utah it was Camas that I found
In Idaho there’s rose hips everywhere

But midwest morels always call me back
To Michigan, a place I’ve also lived
The U.P. doesn’t seem to have a lack
My foraging expresses life un-sieved

For foraging, America’s the best
Come forage now with me from East to West.

The carousel is old, but still it turns
Will it succumb to time eventually
The gears will rust and rotten wood still burns
I try my best to set the horses free

The carousel played music made of joy
But now it skips through songs like broken glass
A ghostly little girl and ghostly boy
At times appear when living children pass

A spooky shortcut to a different time
It marks another place where fear is found
As if the joy it knew was just some crime
And still it’s old, and still it turns around

The carousel is old and we are too
The ghosts of kids we see are me and you.

Who hails the Queen of Femininity
Who calls on Her to pray for us who sin
The Mother of our own Divinity
A call that often comes from deep within

Is bitterness the essence of the call
As Maryam protects our ship of reeds
The essence of Her name protects us all
A name that even Sancte Pater heeds

The Mother God is Strength and Love and Grace
She hears us when we call on Her in need
She hears us from her high and holy place
A place where She espouses Word and Deed

And so we know to whom we need to pray
Deliver us in Glory, Mater Dei

There has to be a bridge that shows us where
Reality and fantasy are linked
I crossed it once, and maybe I’m still there
Where everything and nothing may be synced

We cross it daily, knowing what we trod
And yet, our thoughts are ignorant at best
The bridge is not a metaphor for god
Nor is it somewhere one should stop to rest

Is this the bridge I built when I was lost
When nothing was familiar I perceived
Are bridges only real when they are crossed
Is fantasy a cause to be believed

Reality and fantasy reveal
The places that such bridges can’t conceal.

"They have no wine," says Mary to her Son
A catalyst of miracles to be
And thus, the work of Jesus is begun
Through four small words expressed expectantly 

And now a statued symbol, clothed in white
Few people know her words who know her name 
Who brought into the world one silent night
The Word of God, Lord Jesus, both the same

She spoke to him the way a mother does
But will she speak to us? To you or me?
Can anyone become what Jesus was?
What words might open our divinity?

We search for words to show us we're divine 
Again she whispers this: "They have no wine."