All of these sonnets are very beautiful -- and I find myself greedily wondering if I could get them for my site without paying royalties. But I must point out that two of the best modern poets are posting on this very thread (Tim and Alicia). At the expense of embarrassing A.E., here is one of her sonnets which has become one of my all-time favorites:
A Postcard from Greece
Hatched from sleep, as we slipped out of orbit
Round a clothespin curve new-watered with the rain,
I saw the sea, the sky, as bright as pain,
That outer space through which we were to plummet.
No guardrails hemmed the road, no way to stop it,
The only warning, here and there, a shrine:
Some tended still, some antique and forgotten,
Empty of oil, but all were consecreated
To those who lost their wild race with the road
And sliced the tedious sea once, like a knife.
Somehow we struck an olive tree instead.
Our car stopped on the cliff's brow. Suddenly safe,
We clung together, shade to pagan shade,
Surprised by sunlight, air, this afterlife.
A.E. Stallings
When are we going to see another book, Alicia?
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Caleb
www.poemtree.com