A Sonnet for Thanksgiving which I did not Write
Inspiration from Malcolm and Madeleine, particularly on form
Thanksgiving -Malcolm Guite
Thanksgiving starts with thanks for mere survival,
Just to have made it through another year
With everyone still breathing. But we share
So much beyond the outer roads we travel;
Our interweavings on a deeper level,
The modes of life embodied souls can share,
The unguessed blessings of our being here,
Threads of connection no one can unravel.
So I give thanks for our deep coinherence,
Inwoven in the web of God’s own grace,
Pulling us through the grave and gate of death.
I thank him for the truth behind appearance,
I thank him for his light in every face,
I thank him for us all, with every breath.
from Sounding the Seasons, Seventy Sonnets for the
Christian Year, Canterbury Press, 2012
When I was first introduced to Malcolm Guite’s work twelve years ago1, I was in awe. This poet/priest in the U.K. seemed to think in sonnets; words flow from his pen like water. Not only that, but his poems often send me to my dictionary—what on earth does “coinherence” mean? I have since read each of Malcolm’s poetry and sonnet collections and his work inspires me no end. (More on that in a bit).
Madeleine L’Engle also has thoughts about sonnet-ing.
Sarah Arthur, in her foreword for “The Ordering of Love-New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle,” cites none other than Mrs. Whatsit in A Wrinkle in Time who “likens life to a sonnet—as it has prescribed structure but what you say is up to you.”
Arthur’s foreword continues:
“One could argue that the more constraints the literary form puts on the writer, the more the writer must serve the work, must get herself out of the way. This means that a poetic form such as a sonnet requires a tremendous amount of humility, for the writer can only say what the form allows—no more no less.”
Madeleine L’Engle is best known for her Austin family series of books and of course the trilogy that begins with A Wrinkle in Time. But L’Engle was first a poet, as illustrated in this collection (my copy is a birthday gift received from a dear friend).
The Ordering of Love was first published two years before L’Engle’s death in 2007. The hefty (over 300 pages) volume contains a significant number of poems in free verse as well as a gathering of fourteen sonnets penned in 1998. Here is one of my favorites:
Sonnet 13
-Madeleine L’Engle, from The Ordering of Love
O God! You ask the deepest darkest things.
You blind with light more frightening than dark.
You tell me: Fly! And then you give no wings.
Your sharp sword pierces as it hits the mark.
You gave me love as human as the earth
And earth to earth you’ve gone as all must go.
So we are torn apart ‘twixt tears and mirth
And where your you has gone I do not know.
Oh, God! Your loneliness came into flesh.
You taught us love as you let all love go,
And with your life our lives are deep enmeshed.
We know you as we know we do not know.
Oh God! You ask us all to be like you,
And what you love will truly be made new.
On Writing a Sonnet of My Own
Little by little I’ve continued to learn about the sonnet form by listening and researching (thank you Encyclopedia, Volume S for Shakespeare). I’ve grown to love the meter and cadence of sonnets, often reading them aloud as one must do to fully appreciate a poem.
But reading sonnets is one thing; writing a sonnet is another matter altogether. The prescribed formula of 14-lines with 10 beats per line seems very restrictive at first glance (or second!). But the boundaries can also be rather liberating as one decides to get out of the way and serve the work, as Madeleine L’Engle has said.
When I wrote and gathered the poems for my newest book, Mining the Bright Birds, I decided to try my hand at a sonnet, pencil (and eraser) close at hand. I’m no Shakespeare or Malcolm, but I had fun!
For you.
Twilight, A Small Sonnet
Light falls now, weightless illumination
Quickens this empty tabletop, calls forth
Quiet glory, day's end and salvation.
Lost, now revealed, earthbound trappings reflect,
Lay animated tho' anchored, pooled in
Sun's spotlight streaming magnification.
Words rise, invisible silence speaking
At a whisper through glass bathed in umber
Leaving night's edge and sleep's invitation
They stay as invited then tiptoe towards slumber.
Whether in writing or life, I believe the metaphor holds. Boundaries are good for us, paradoxically offering us freedom. As the Apostle Paul so perfectly states in Ephesians 2:10, we are God’s poiema, His “made thing,” (the definition for the Greek word). We become most like ourselves when we yield the pen to God’s hand and He “poems us into being” (Malcolm again). Here’s to the work. Here’s to the pen.
Between the Lines A favorite passage from a favorite book, currently reading or read
One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.
One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the Eastern sky almost makes one cry out and one's heart stand still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun.
-Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden
Word from the Wise Underlined ‘aha’s
My story is important not because it is mine, God knows but because if I tell it anything like right the chances are you will recognize it in many ways it is also yours.
-Frederick Buechner
Malcolm’s Website is HERE
Now Available-my newest book: Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home. Purchase on Amazon|Bookshop|Wherever Books Are Sold. You can also find Hearts on Pilgrimage: Poems & Prayers (2021) HERE. Thank you for reading!
Oh how beautiful, Jody - thank you so much for this dive into sonnets, and for sharing your own. It's glorious. And Malcolm Guite's book is one of my favorites!