Sonnet CCCXXXIV

My envy seethes below the fallen leaves,

defiant hills of discontented green.

I cannot find serenity today:

where are the placid fields of yesterday?

The strident branches reach up to the sky,

almighty in their rage, and ever high.

How void the arms which once held happiness,

which now are shrivelled in their bitterness;

how stark the cloudless sky of gray above,

a limitless expanse devoid of sun.

I have no place at lovely Nature’s feast;

the hosts all mimic me and tease.

I only see the progeny of rage,

which taunts me, multiplied in every way.

Sonnet CCCXXXIII

Its garden dead, its contents cold and bare,
What’s left is just a shell to be repaired.
The sprawling weeds reign king, the grass is long;
the tulips lay forgotten in the throng.

The truck sits, blocking all the driveway space,
forbidding in its grand yet simple grace.
The kids play all around, unbidden, free,
but pause to wave as I pass, wondering.

How love had driven them to tend their home!
The sentiments have fled, one can behold –
the house is peeling, barren, messy, tired.
But final rays of afternoon ignite;
the sparkling windows flash a last farewell.
The truck clangs shut, and leaves with troll-like stealth.

Sonnet CCCXXXII

He’s crafted hair for half a century,

so mine are pinpricks in a hairy sea.

He snips and combs, and strips away the old;

the excess falls like needles to my cloak.

They look like magnets, silver in the light;

at other angles, they are dark as night,

much blacker than the black that shields my clothes.

He starts to talk – on what he loves and loathes;

his loyal friends and customers all laugh.

His plans for after work, his coloured past –

these fill the place with laughter, joy, and mirth,

although there’s three of us (but soon a fourth).

He’s done with me at last. I smile and pay,

then turn back toward my mundane Saturday.