Sonnet CCCXXXIX

A thousand voices carolling,

Each shaded by the canopies of spring:

So often have I heard their charming song,

Not knowing where their tiny hearts belong!

I’ve sought the secret of the stony skies,

But never have I found that hidden prize.

Though dare I say they blush a brighter blue

Whenever their beloved trills a tune!

The grass has glowed with jealous emerald;

The sun has shone with gentler, warmer gold.

As if the world would bend toward their whims

At just one ringing note of songbird hymns!

There’s magic pouring from these feathered throats –

Have brighter seraphs ever sung such notes?

Sonnet CCCXXXVIII

Precariously dangling from a tree,

He mutely eyes the android enemy.

He eyes his goal with puma-like furore,

Then dives through air towards the earthen floor.

Lest others steal his hard-earned, sylvan prize,

His ready senses swiftly scrutinize.

Suspecting something is indeed amiss,

He darts from sight into the shade’s abyss.

Emerging once his humble meal is done,

He breaks into a fleeting little run.

He scampers up the half-dressed, wooden bones

And rests upon the grey limb of his home.

And leafy tears obscure the world below:

The oaks lament their stolen embryos.

Sonnet CCCXXXVII

They say Verona’s roses paled nearby

and summer winds retired out of spite

the day the master poised the brush to paint.

Madonna smiles, resplendent in her grace,

the Child swaddled in her azure robes:

The critics rave about the lucid strokes

that shine like flames upon a canvas sea.

The hues shine through the many centuries,

the souvenir of brightest brilliance,

undying to the transient populace.

Instead –

                 thrown out with trash and cans of beer,

half-painted as a shoddy, forged Vermeer,

by whom, but rats shall it be seen?

Oh Fame, you are a fickle, fickle fiend!