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Psalm Sonnets
Alexandra Glynn
Psalm Sonnets
Copyright © 2015 Alexandra Glynn. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2366-9
EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2367-6
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
With palms in hand
With palms in hand, O Christ, I’ll follow you
Into Jerusalem and see you weep
Because of what great sinners did and do.
My vigil in the garden I will keep.
I’ll watch as you sweat drops of blood and pray.
I’ll go into the supper and I’ll take
The cup, with the disciples I will stay
And watch as you the bread of Easter break.
But then . . . Lord, is it I? Will I depart
And go out in the bitterness of night
With greed, envy, and hatred in my heart
To meet with those who do what is not right?
I know with the disciples I remain
Yet fled away from you and all your pain.
When birds are murdered
When birds are murdered I begin to cry.
When lions tear at jackals it seems right.
But songbirds—what did they do? So when I
Behold one slaughtered, life is not as bright—
It seems as if a great debt must be paid,
That something big is owed now that the breast
From which came songs to God is gravely laid
Silent in earth. But from what treasure chest
Are coins of gold enough that they would end
An obligation sense such as I know
Because the bird I thought of as my friend
Is slain and drips red droplets on the snow?
A murdered bird is like a murdered soul—
Like diamonds one has smeared with pitch and coal.
A tale is told like a light
A tale is told like a light lit each year.
What happened this year, last year, or what might
Be next year—the angels’ news “Do not fear”
Will stay. And when these tall solacing bright
Flames have melted the candles’ wax that warms,
We must buy candles tall again. We will
Recite that story as new sculpted forms
Melt away again. The tidings will still
Be the same cheer as when on a dark night
A note of hope by the humble was heard.
Our consolations, as light after light,
Are retold to us year by year and word
By word; so we to the story belong
Just as a melody does to a song.
Rabbits ruined my plants
Rabbits ruined my plants. On high birds sing,
Beneath the sunshine the brooklet still flows,
And fresh rain has sprinkled. The smell of spring
From furrows rises. My heart only knows
How I broke soil and dug, and soaked my skin
With fine dirt and put seeds in, and I brushed
The dust back over each seed. Then, like sin,
Rabbits ate everything. Their nibbling crushed
The shoots by morning, at noon, and my field
Was their night feasting. And I know they sought
More, moving when done with me to a sealed
Garden. They broke in and were there a blot.
The next season I plant let there be sun,
Let birds sing, and let blessing waters run.
They are harvesting today
They are harvesting today. Now the sun
Shows brown earth slashed, overturned; over there
Trickling rivlets to colder fast streams run,
And like marks of passing life, branches bare
Stick out from the shivering naked trees
Around those upturned acres of soil. Cast
To that dark cut earth are leaves. The fall breeze
Has done its work so they unto the last
Are down. The gates and roads surround the field;
So I know past black dust, there is a way,
