Sonnet

I seem to have been doing quite a few poetic things recently, so today I'm posting two poems. Here is the first of them; someone said to me not long ago, "You can't really call yourself a poet unless you can write a half-decent sonnet." Well, I don't know whether this passes muster poetically, but it's my attempt, and it's from the heart - poetically, in Miltonian style and using a classic Italian rhyme structure, theologically reflecting, as so much I write, the thinking of Mother Julian of Norwich.

When, looking back, I trace the steps I made,

my wilfulness, my sin, my empty pride,

it shames me, Lord: if only I could hide

in some shade place until those memories fade,

or thou forget the false prayers I have prayed,

the dark distortion of the self inside;

my hopeful dreams, long left untended, died,

so cold the stone which on my heart is laid.

And yet I hear my Lord say, “Child, I know

how chill your heart, how far and lost you feel,

how mired you are in guilt and fearfulness;

come close, and see where living waters flow,

come, touch the cross, which is my true love’s seal:

I love you now, and never loved you less.”