Psalm Sonnets. Alexandra Glynn

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      Psalm Sonnets

      Copyright © 2015 Alexandra Glynn. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2366-9

      EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2367-6

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      With palms in hand

      With palms in hand, O Christ, I’ll follow you

      Into Jerusalem and see you weep

      Because of what great sinners did and do.

      My vigil in the garden I will keep.

      I’ll watch as you sweat drops of blood and pray.

      I’ll go into the supper and I’ll take

      The cup, with the disciples I will stay

      And watch as you the bread of Easter break.

      But then . . . Lord, is it I? Will I depart

      And go out in the bitterness of night

      With greed, envy, and hatred in my heart

      To meet with those who do what is not right?

      I know with the disciples I remain

      Yet fled away from you and all your pain.

      When birds are murdered

      When birds are murdered I begin to cry.

      When lions tear at jackals it seems right.

      But songbirds—what did they do? So when I

      Behold one slaughtered, life is not as bright—

      It seems as if a great debt must be paid,

      That something big is owed now that the breast

      From which came songs to God is gravely laid

      Silent in earth. But from what treasure chest

      Are coins of gold enough that they would end

      An obligation sense such as I know

      Because the bird I thought of as my friend

      Is slain and drips red droplets on the snow?

      A murdered bird is like a murdered soul—

      Like diamonds one has smeared with pitch and coal.

      A tale is told like a light

      A tale is told like a light lit each year.

      What happened this year, last year, or what might

      Be next year—the angels’ news “Do not fear”

      Will stay. And when these tall solacing bright

      Flames have melted the candles’ wax that warms,

      We must buy candles tall again. We will

      Recite that story as new sculpted forms

      Melt away again. The tidings will still

      Be the same cheer as when on a dark night

      A note of hope by the humble was heard.

      Our consolations, as light after light,

      Are retold to us year by year and word

      By word; so we to the story belong

      Just as a melody does to a song.

      Rabbits ruined my plants

      Rabbits ruined my plants. On high birds sing,

      Beneath the sunshine the brooklet still flows,

      And fresh rain has sprinkled. The smell of spring

      From furrows rises. My heart only knows

      How I broke soil and dug, and soaked my skin

      With fine dirt and put seeds in, and I brushed

      The dust back over each seed. Then, like sin,

      Rabbits ate everything. Their nibbling crushed

      The shoots by morning, at noon, and my field

      Was their night feasting. And I know they sought

      More, moving when done with me to a sealed

      Garden. They broke in and were there a blot.

      The next season I plant let there be sun,

      Let birds sing, and let blessing waters run.

      They are harvesting today

      They are harvesting today. Now the sun

      Shows brown earth slashed, overturned; over there

      Trickling rivlets to colder fast streams run,

      And like marks of passing life, branches bare

      Stick out from the shivering naked trees

      Around those upturned acres of soil. Cast

      To that dark cut earth are leaves. The fall breeze

      Has done its work so they unto the last

      Are down. The gates and roads surround the field;

      So I know past black dust, there is a way,