Sonnet V: Artifice

[kaberett]

I think one makes belief as one makes love:
think drystone walls of balanced masonry--
think of the hand that fits and shapes the glove--
think every stone cradled by gravity
secured in place by virtue of its weight
and no two are alike, but each is key.
I find I shy away from all the freight
attached to "anchor" as a term of praise--
but still each kindness settles into place:
a piecemeal ballast for my listing days,
or bearings set toward a kind of grace--
something to trust when cast adrift in haze.
So: tell me who I am, as seen by you.
Tell me a story; I will make it true.

Comments

[kaberett]

#overblownnauticalmetaphors4lyfe

[ironed_orchid]

This really got to me.

Thank you

[kaberett]

You're very welcome; thank you for letting me know.

:)

[alexseanchai]

Nts: appreciate better later when brain

Re: :)

[kaberett]

(<3!)

[vass]

Coping: a stone that is
Keeping on top of things
Requiring, therefore
There to be a whole pile
Of things to keep on top of.

[kaberett]

thank you <333

[atreic]

Thank you. This is wonderful

[kaberett]

Thank you :-)

[glass_icarus]

:)

[kaberett]

Glad you enjoyed!

[wild_irises]

Very lovely; I like both the formalism and the sentiment. Thank you!

[kaberett]

You're very welcome! There is a longer post To Come at Some Point about what I've learned from utterly failing to write 12 sonnets this year (there are another two incubating); short version is "quite a lot but I'm probably not setting that kind of goal again".

[mathemagicalschema]

Leave it to a geologist to make rocks sound so tender. This was lovely, thank you.

[kaberett]

if it helps, I'm pretty sure the really hilarious bit is that I didn't realise it was a love sonnet about rocks until the fifth or sixth draft

[wordweaverlynn]

That's one reason I love it so. A love song to rocks.

[calissa]

Thank you. I love so much about this, not least of which is the reminder of how much I am missing poetry.

[hairyears]

Dry-Stone wallers are strange, strange people. They claim that they can visualise the space that every stone will fit into - that it *exactly* fits into - three score stones ahead.

The strangest thing about them is that they are almost certainly right.

Over fellsides to eternity

[hairyears]

I am a dry stone waller,
All day I dry stone wall.
Of all appalling callings
Dry-stone walling's worst of all.


(Pam Ayres)