Eric’s Sonnets in Gratitude to Manatita

Some friend, Manatita, challenged me to write a sonnet. A sonnet? I looked it up as I know not of “sonnets”. Funny as it can be in Shakespeare style. Well I reckon I have read all of his sonnets. Strange about sonnets. Now again that I have read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet many times. So a song that is called a sonnet is a strange thing indeed. Lambic Pentameter sonnet is kind of how I think. Our inner soul must rhyme like a sonnet. It must be a cool drinking stream that even others can love and gulp up. I shoot for that. Too often miss the mark of love sonnets.

So my old friend David wrote music and Psalms and it pleased the Lord. Now this makes me think that that is a good thing. It is not my calling. And then the struggle to do it, brought me closer to my own heart. How words can be created in a sonnet please our own goodness. My goodness, as such it is, is not mine. I was not born in love I was born to search for it.

I was born on October 4^th, but it would seem born poorly. Some physical defects. So I was in the hospital for two more months. Fantastic. Something to do with some guts type stuff and a leg born backwards. So I was adopted today December 4^th. This is what we call my “chosen” today, 62 years ago. Wow I just came out of the rain to washing up.

Something about all that just from the beginning makes a man cry in joy all these years later. Wahoo I am alive! One year for my high school I ran cross country, wrestled, Skied, did three things in track and field and did some baseball. A Five Letterman we called it back then. Can you imagine from a kid with a brace for 3 years? So my art and work is not from within completely it is also from without. More love than most can imagine.

I have achieved a doctorate and been on every continent. I have preached and teached. I have had two wives who love me to death. And children that make me feel fantastic and are accomplished. My parents were best friends of mine. And not one danged thing my doing or choice just love. Make sure you understand that I am not a “self-made” man, I am one of other’s love.

And so we take off on two sonnets. (The rain here is so heavy that meetings are cancelled so time to spend with my buddy laptop to write)

Oh my lady is in me and does not always love me

She stands tall and erect yet she is the smallest of sect

She suffers and toils and stands tall yet though small she be

Of all hard work that I do she stands ready to direct

Why through my troubles so difficult she waits

It is clear that it take a heavy uneven toll

And with her there are many, many debates

I suppose with us we play many a different role

Yet above out heavy burden we call life

We seem to jump across all the boiling waters

She often rejects my poetry yet knows my inner strife

And inner poetry of love is all that really matters

So together we will still stand

Like a silly merry band

Life is brutal as we can all see

Life may be as hard as nails

Life may hurt as it will be

Life can knock us off us hard off the rails

I do not understand why life hurts so much

I do not get why it gets so difficult at times

I do not know why we are treated so such

I wish that life would be easy like children’s rhymes

But we get the easy, easy moments

And we get that big old moon in sky

Our love we have may not lay dormant

It is inside like poetry waiting to cry

Who shall we look to in times aerie?

Time to see the poetry inside me

I did not meet this challenge well. It is like you need to be still and quiet for our inner poetry to be felt and heard. This I will work on. How do we express our inner most-self poetry if we put it in words? Our group hug this morning was poetic. My words totally fell beneath the mark. Perhaps gardening and cooking and just helping another is the real poetry. Yet I am such an amateur in such matters I could not possibly reveal what I do not know. I think I will ask my 9 year old after school. I bet he has an answer.

Now more about these confounding sonnets. You are supposed to raise a dilemma type thing in the beginning and then resolve by the end using 14 lines. Now that is impossible. Most folks who can do it well are called “the greats”. Now after trying it, I will read more of them as it is tougher than hiking 14,000 feet and I know.

“You feeling alright? I’m not feeling that good myself.” (Joe Cocker) So I put this song on as I was not feeling that good myself. Just some dancing changed me. I simply refuse to do well. I have so many issues going on in my life that it could make your head spin right off. Wife issues, house issues, car issues, children issues, and health issues. But the sonnets brought it back to real. I have a wife to have issues with, a home to have issues with, a car to have issues with, children to have issues with and look at me I am thriving health wise.

So our sonnets project a problem. Wonderful. Within 14 lines we must resolve them. Make room today to let love erase issues. Make time today to let the poetry within you create a lift. Poetry should be sung in your heart and psalms should written slowly and treasured.

If you are having a problem with that, shout out. Why shucks you can write me. I am just full up and can give you some loving. We do love around here.

A special thanks to Manatita. He moved me for complacency is the room of bad.