THE SONNET might be the best poem for time-challenged 21st century readers — forgoing lengthy free verse, the sonnet aims to concisely convey its subject in 14 power-packed lines.
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Come winter Your canvas is bare and gray —
But for pine and hemlock splotches, wood’s scene
Speaks silence, waits for April rain to play.
Each spring You sing the lifeless canvas green,
Add kaleidoscope of color — deep pink,
Gold, purple — impressionist paradise.
When summer’s palette appears, You rethink
Hue and soon rearrange designs, now thrice
Changed. Then lawn-and-leaf luster is replaced
By fall’s consuming fire — forest-clad hill
Ablaze with passion’s brush, painfully traced —
Until tree-glory yields to winter’s will.
Oh Artist True — Your masterpiece, such art!
Let Your beauty draw me to Your true heart.
© Bruce William Deckert 2020
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POETRY 411 NOTES
• Here’s an alternate closing couplet — i.e., the last two lines:
Oh Artist True, You paint each season’s art —
Let Your canvas draw me to Your true heart.
What closing couplet do you prefer and/or like better?
• Since this blog focuses on sports-and-faith issues, each sonnet I’m posting has at least one sports connection — in this case, it’s the fleeting reference to “play” in the third line … and “play” is about as sports-related as it gets!
• This is a Shakespearean (or English) sonnet — a poem comprised of three four-line stanzas and a closing couplet, with the following rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. The Shakespearean sonnet has 10 syllables per line, often employing iambic pentameter — five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables (an iamb is one pair).
• Thanks for stopping by — I hope your time here has been worthwhile.
A Slow Life in the FAST Lane 