May 29. '13

                           Sonnet On Line

          To take off with any word through time
          Challenges the sonnet beyond capacity -
          It cannot hold a train of thought and memory -
          How much more if one considers the word 'line'.
          For a line in reality is infinite -
          Even though, like light or a circle, it bends.
          Whereas "hold that line" is a mark most definite,
          An ideal line is something that never ends.
          The 'line' is turning out a long discovery -
          I can take it to the beginning of all things created,
          And show how everything is inter-related;
          A line is essential for the past's recovery.
          The sonnet is limited on detail and fact -
          But for fourteen lines it does 'pretty good' for the abstract.

U.S.A.

            
      May 29, '13

                                U.S.A.

     I wish to make it clear from the start -
     Jerusalem is my spiritual city of birth -
     I love its stones - I love its earth,
     But I have a dual-citizen heart.
     United States of the great American way -
     You have always had your defamers,
     But I was born in Phila. - city of the Framers,
     And I'm proud to be "made in the USA".
     U - endowed by the Creator with life and liberty -
     S - say can you see the stars and stripes -
     A - land of faultlines yet brave and free -
     U.S. of the Constitution and Bill of  Rights.
     Simple would it be if I was a citizen of one nation,
     But the heart if a gracious land, looking kindly
                                                         on annexation.
                                                       

                                April 24, '13
                        Unseasonable Weather

              When I consider my inner weather -
              How I can ride a string of sunny days -
              And from nowhere grey clouds obscure my skies -
              I say:  weather is nothing if not a metaphor.
              What's the meaning in an April so unseasonable?
              I, for one, don't mind winter months in spring.
              Roses are no worse off for the cold and rain -
              That doesn't make it less unreasonable.
              People say it's a spiritual maelstrom -
              Cosmic forces affecting the oceanic.
              Incidents abound of hurricanes and hailstorms -
              The talk tends to be messianic.
              It's safe to say that outer turmoil and reversal
              Are a metaphor for the inner - and vice versal.