The humid summer pressed against her torpid brow
and painted perspiration on its surface there.
A drop plopped on her pale-white rose and cooled its face,
then holding it, she saw it darken like a frown.
The day crept by, morose and full of lazy sounds
and as she waited, felt the warm zephyr of air.
She didn’t think her birthday was a boring day,
but cherished solitude like nature’s precious crown.
Her mom was sweet and gave the lovely rose to her
before she quickly left with Dad to go to work.
And though they’d all go celebrate the day at night,
the rose was special, almost like a quiet thought
that wished to make itself more known and seen, so wrought
its loving self within the loveliest of sights.
I wrote four sonnets for my English novel study based on the fantastic novel Shizuko's Daughter by one of my favourite authors, Kyoko Mori. It tells of four women and their struggles in Japan. The protagonist Yuki deals with her mother's suicide; her mother Shizuko deals with her husband's affair; Hanae, Yuki's new stepmother deals with her bitter life; and Masa, Yuki's grandmother, must deal with the fact that her daughter took her own life.
ReplyDeleteThis sonnet was "Summer", representing Yuki, a teenage girl deeply attached to her mother. It was the second in my sonnet cycle, Four Women, with each sonnet assigning a season to similar characters in Shizuko's Daughter.