After my wife's death in 2004, I began writing some poetry. A few years later, I challenged my AP Literature students to write a sonnet and promised I would do the same. I kept that promise, and then wrote a score of sonnets.
I haven't written a line of poetry in two years now, but a recent online correspondent mentioned she had read the few poems under the header at the top of this page. Her comment sent me back to look over those poems. Some are worthless. Some may deserve a readership. Below is one I remembering writing years ago. One great treat about writing poetry as opposed to prose is that you can carry the poem in your head, editing it wherever you go, changing a word, dropping or adding a comma. (Google Oscar Wilde and comma, and you'll see what I mean.)
At any rate, here it is.
I haven't written a line of poetry in two years now, but a recent online correspondent mentioned she had read the few poems under the header at the top of this page. Her comment sent me back to look over those poems. Some are worthless. Some may deserve a readership. Below is one I remembering writing years ago. One great treat about writing poetry as opposed to prose is that you can carry the poem in your head, editing it wherever you go, changing a word, dropping or adding a comma. (Google Oscar Wilde and comma, and you'll see what I mean.)
At any rate, here it is.
Aeneas Senex
When once the chill of autumn bit your bones,
O Teucrian king, and red dawns woke you stiff
As bloodied oxen hide, untanned, half-dried;
When once Ascanius, beloved son,
Redeemed by you that night from burning Troy,
Cast hungry eyes upon your burnished throne,
When once the thick array of Dardan spears
Grew thin as Lombard’s winter grass, when men
Once strong now doddered through your halls—what then?
How did you wend that night-tide watch from dusk
To dawn, beset by cries of Cruesa’s ghost,
By glittering Sybil’s bough, by Hades’ shades,
By Latium’s dusty plains where Pallas fell,
By Turnus gutted by your bloody sword?
You and I have shared some common ground:
Like you I’ve lost a wife and friends to death,
Like you I sought my star of destiny--
But truth to tell, my days are but a jot;
I’ve only fought the skirmishes of life;
I’ve dared no caves of Pluto’s reeking hell
(Though I have walked the halls of human hearts);
I’ve faced no shrieking Aeolian gales
(Though I have steered the storms of human souls.)
Yet still tonight I wonder, man of steel--
Did you like me see all your past as dream?
Did you like me look back with breaking heart
At life’s fierce sweep of days, the rushing grains
Of grizzled Chronos?—Did you like me
Bear wine to bed to make the dead lie still?
It comforts me some nights to think of you
Abed, half-drunk and drowned in Dido’s eyes.