wintermoon

WINTERMOON

Shall I compare thee to a winter’s moon?

You hold more warmth in morning’s dawning light.

Cold, still, the air that wraps life in her womb

and winter’s grip through endless months holds tight.

So short; the sun’s swift journey ‘cross the sky

leaves long and darkened edges to our day.

To sleep succumb, and hibernating cry

we - eyes downcast – forget horizon’s way

of playing with our light at morn and eves. 

Late sun casts cool pink carpet as she breaks

and breaks and breaks and circling, dawn retrieves.

But long before, the winter’s moon awakes;

companion trails through cold night wanderings,

holds sunlight trapped, then fades in the offerings.

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Getting ready to write poetry for this next season.  I stumbled into this practice last year as I started into the gospel of John, wrestling with the reality of the infinite God becoming finite, the Creator taking the form of his creation. So I decided to severely limit the form of my writing.  A very small way to experience succumbing to the limit of form.

I thought I would post more of them last year, but found the process far too raw ... exposed wrestlings and "accidental" or form-driven phrases that surprised me.

This poem is anchored in the sight of the winter moon that hovers and shines over the western horizon just before the sun rises.  Or as it rises on a cold dark evening and shines across the south Saskatchewan river along the Meewasin trail. Short days mean that the moon has more time.  Its cold white reflected light reveals the night in a completely different way than the obliteration of the yellow sun.

Also - it is a brash riff from the sonnet master, Shakespeare.  Why follow only a definition of a sonnet when you can improv off a sonnet with long life?
So.  There are many variations of a sonnet - it has had centuries in which to morph.  This follows a form like Shakespeare's:
14 lines
each line has 10 beats
beats are in iambic pentameter
rhyming scheme is ABAB CDCD  EFEF  GG

So.rigid.  "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"