Safe Passage (...isn't a sonnet at all)

Mar 28 23:08 UTC 2001

I had a Rilke moment the other day and decided to try my hand at a sonnet. 
I've been working on it for a week or so now; it's an advantage of having
a day job that doesn't require thinking.  I got two not-sonnets-at-all out
of it, and one almost-sonnet.  Really, I like the failed attempts better. 
        -d
---

SAFE PASSAGE

Up along one arm, miming the path of veins,
she vaults, sinking her shoes into the bark
to reach the first wristbones, the handholds,
the sore thumb of an early branch.

Her heart feels her fall a thousand times,
perching itself in her glad throat,
but if her arms are weak, the trees are strong
and though her wrists are softly pierced through with flight

she will return to the dirt, plucked down
by rough budding fingernails, a thousand times.

response 2 of 3:

Aug 13 17:47 UTC 2001

Ah... as in "the tree's [arms] are strong"?

I actually hadn't thought of that reading, but I rather like it.  I'll think
about that.