Construction

It wasn't an option whether to go or stay

(bodily). And so she sits

with her toys, or in the garden, pretending to play.

Secretly, she matches wits

with the adults around her, fits

herself into their inscrutable comedy

to all outward appearances, while her inner soul flits

easily away on the ether. She is building her own tragedy,

invisible to the naked eye

of the world or its denizens. They are not so smart

as she is – yet she will find a hard cost later. She will cry

then, from her old broken heart

for the soul that could only fly inwards. Now, no moan

nor sigh nor any sign must reveal the walls of stone.

Written for dVerse Meeting the Bar: Bouts Rimés Revisited, using the end words, in order:  stay, sits, play, wits, fits, comedy, flits, tragedy, eye, smart, cry, heart, moan, stone.

I chose to do a free verse sonnet – a contradiction in terms? That is, the 14 lines and the rhyme scheme are fixed; the line lengths are not and there is no metre.

The photo is of me and was taken by my Dad when I was four. It is my property and must not be copied or used in any way without my permission.

The Music of Light

The music of light is caught

in his eyes. Don't tell him

a song has been hunted and got

and imprisoned there — not dim

even when his lids make shade,

but shining ahead wherever he goes.

Whether he wanders in some glade

or follows the river where it flows,

there is still that radiant music. It lies

behind his own vision, it might be stone

for all it displays to him. But it never dies

to our perception. In colour and tone

it is a unique thing, delicate as finest lawn

or a rippling echo: not quite here, never gone.

That phrase, 'the music of light', has been presenting itself to me for some time, with no context. The Bout-Rimés challenge at 'imaginary garden with real toads' gave me a chance to explore it and see where it led — to a further mystery. 

The end words of these lines come from another poem. We were invited to identify it. I feel that I should and do know it, but can't place it. It's pretty obviously a sonnet, and might be Shakespearian ('glade' is not a word much used today; and 'got' in an older sense — of begotten — is more likely to end a line than the contemporary use I give it). However....

My poem could be seen as a free verse sonnet — having no regular metre, but a sonnet's rhyme scheme and some (unplanned) shifts of focus as it moves into the last six lines and then the last two — or just a 14-line poem. (I wasn't setting out to write a sonnet, but only to follow my imagination.)

I'm also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #254