Sonnet CCCLXIII

Unwary laughter stirs the languid air:
The weary robins interlace their yawns
Unbidden breezes charm our tickled arms,
meandering toward the heaven's stair.

The shadows of the trees are barely there;
the limpid flowers rest their lurid shawls -
In viscous resignation, stilled and calm,
Warm oxygen absorbs our every care.

As Artemis is dying all the clouds,
Apollo closes up his pearly gate.
The final sun-kissed photons scintillate
as conversation takes its final bow:
these summer hours sedately dissipate,
and Mother Nature packs away her day.

Sonnet CCCXI

The frozen earth is creaking slightly
as cautious footsteps tread its face.
My eyes, like guarded shells of brandy,
are scanning quickly ‘round the place.
I’m searching for the Dog I’m scared of.
He’s nowhere to be seen – but careful!
As walking past his home, he barks –
I see his muzzle, then his snarl.
But then I’m past and he is chained there,
and is he – puzzled? Curious?
We glance covertly, silent, lest
the other think the other weaker.
He barks, I bow; he stalks away –
but maybe we shall meet another day.

Sonnet CCLXXIII

Of late, she thinks about herself and how she’s changed.
She’s old, dependent, dying, trapped within her home.
She planned on travelling, to Paris, Cuba, Rome,
but now she lives off pensions, locked inside her cage.
She thinks of youth, and misses it, a bit amazed
at how the time has passed. Her only son is grown –
but stingy – keeping phone calls, money for his own,
while thinking she’s decrepit and deranged.

Her son would never spend a measly dime for her
despite his wealth. She’s raised him all these years, to err!

And yet – to err is only human. What of that?
Forgiveness is divine! If sons decide to scorn,
then who’ll coerce their smiles, forced and falsely warm?
An honest miser’s better than a lying rat.

Sonnet CCLXVII

A battered ship entangled in the breeze, it shakes
and creaks, belying strength one thinks it should portray.
I doubt its oblong cage, although its massive plane
proves warmer than the seas of air that now invade.

As is if some demon, churning at the sides and panes,
these winds do not relent, but carry on and bray,
forgetting all their summer cousins, filled with grace.
These winds instead encourage enmity, disdain.

Oh turbulent and wicked! Fear exalts my face,
now lifted, wishing that I had the faith to pray.

Instead, within this home my hopes remain for life.
Within, I find seclusion from the chill and cold
through artificial means. For life I beg and hold,
which storms prove frail compared to frigid winter strife.

Sonnet CCXIII

I’m now a country mouse. My field is grand and free,
my dwelling’s lots of fun; behind’s a large, old barn
(I told my rodent friends, who thought it was a yarn)!
The city’s far away – and such a sight to see!
At night, illuminated, lights shine merrily,
like islands, pricked in pins of pink beyond the barn.
And standing mute as mice, the trees become a cryptic cairn,
a bunch of waves “good-night”, procuring sleep for me.

Before, I was a city mouse that lived away;
in domiciles of dreary sameness did I stay.

But now I am a country mouse, so proud with joy!
My life out here in hamlets, small and filled with ease
is better. Still, it’s hard for every place to please:
some like the city; others love more rustic joy!