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    AC Benus
  • AC Benus
  • Author
  • 12/04/2016
  • 231 Words
  • 988 Views
  • 6 Comments
Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

One Hundred and Fifty-Five Sonnets - 25. light

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Sonnet No. 49

 

The body of every person alive

Emits a tiny amount of light,

Which is destined to shine and to thrive

Totally below the level of sight.

Some say this light is like that of a star,

And as old as when the universe burst;

Others that it is the mind's avatar,

Showing connection clairvoyant first.

But a third way might prove the middle ground –

That the light from us made the cosmos part,

And gave meaning to all dead matter found,

For without Love, creation could not start.

The light I behold in you is just the same

As shone on us before the world had a name.

 

 

Sonnet No. 50


Time flows ever towards an evening-slide

Sweeping hopes and wants until they recede

Back to the stymied calm that they precede

To wash away all in its waning glide.

But like water, time has its morningtide

Swelling and lifting up every misdeed

To the point that truth might at least succeed

To roar fire by a dull ember's side.

But those coming and goings, my dearest,

Can't effect the steady pace we have built,

As we stroll holding hands on the clearest,

High path above the current and the silt,

For the way we've chosen is the holiest,

And will never float away on tides of guilt.

 

 

_

Copyright © 2018 AC Benus; All Rights Reserved.
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Parker Owens

The Quakers talk about the inner light, and I think you have very clearly hit upon a deeply moving and poetic way of describing it. I am particularly drawn to your third way. Our light acting to cleave the cosmos and give meaning to that which has no life; that love wakes the dead – now that is a profound statement of hope. As for the final couplet, you state succinctly why you I live – to see that light in every other person we know, so as to behold that same love that made all creation. Awesome. This definitely goes in my 'keeper file.'

 

I felt a deep melancholy in the first two quatrains. Hopes, wants, dreams – all swept away by the remorseless movement of time. Surely, I know this, and the hurt of watching all of my desires washed away in the stream. In the second quatrain, I see my misdeeds (they are legion) boil to the surface of the swollen, roiling river you bring to mind so easily. They wash up as so much jetsam to be burned as firewood – or so I surmised. The sestet looks serenely over this muddy, turgid stream, and perhaps gives the reader new hope. At least, that's what it did for me.

 

Both of these are masterful sonnets: the first for its exquisitely tuned thoughts on love, and the second for its splendidly evocative images. You have shared something I shall not soon forget.

  • Love 1
AC Benus
On 12/5/2016 at 6:54 AM, Parker Owens said:

The Quakers talk about the inner light, and I think you have very clearly hit upon a deeply moving and poetic way of describing it. I am particularly drawn to your third way. Our light acting to cleave the cosmos and give meaning to that which has no life; that love wakes the dead – now that is a profound statement of hope. As for the final couplet, you state succinctly why you I live – to see that light in every other person we know, so as to behold that same love that made all creation. Awesome. This definitely goes in my 'keeper file.'

I felt a deep melancholy in the first two quatrains. Hopes, wants, dreams – all swept away by the remorseless movement of time. Surely, I know this, and the hurt of watching all of my desires washed away in the stream. In the second quatrain, I see my misdeeds (they are legion) boil to the surface of the swollen, roiling river you bring to mind so easily. They wash up as so much jetsam to be burned as firewood – or so I surmised. The sestet looks serenely over this muddy, turgid stream, and perhaps gives the reader new hope. At least, that's what it did for me.

Both of these are masterful sonnets: the first for its exquisitely tuned thoughts on love, and the second for its splendidly evocative images. You have shared something I shall not soon forget.

Such a powerful review, I feel a bit loath to say what really inspired me. But, here goes ;) In subatomic physics there is actually a quantifiable amount of light generated by the atom itself. Albeit low, this puts us all as a collection of miniature galaxies ourselves. As for love being the fundamental breath of life and soul in the universe, I must defer to a better poet than I: Hesiod.

BUT, there is nothing to say my meaning is the correct one. Your beautiful interpretations touch me very deeply. I'm blessed you shared them here.

As for No. 50, your comments are wonderful. You've helped me see this poem more clearly.

Thank you, Parker, for sharing your amazing review with me. I appreciate it a great deal.

Edited by AC Benus
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