#sonnet on hearing a thrush sing

[adventuresofalgy]

The weather in the wild west Highlands of Scotland was feeling a wee bit unstable and agitated… and so were the local birds, for there was much twittering and excitement in the bushes and trees. Even though it was really not the slightest bit warm, there was a definite change in the air, and a new brighter, stronger light that heralded spring…

In the past couple of days Algy's wee feathered friends around the garden had all begun to chirrup and sing, each according to their manner, and he was especially thrilled to hear the characteristic tones of the song thrush rising above the rest. It was a sound he awaited eagerly in the early months of every year, and greeted with glee.

Although it was still breezy, it was nothing like as windy as it had been during the past week, so Algy decided to take a wee rest, so that he could listen attentively to all his bird friends. Finding himself a comfortable couch on the soft branches of a small stand of cypress, Algy leaned back and relaxed, rocking to and fro gently in the much-reduced wind, listening, and thinking:

Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough, Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain, See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign, At thy blythe carol, clears his furrowed brow. Thus in bleak Poverty's dominion drear, Sits meek Content with light, unanxious heart; Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, Nor asks if they bring ought to hope or fear. I thank thee, Author of this opening day! Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies! Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys - What wealth could never give nor take away! But come, thou child of poverty and care, The mite high heav'n bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.

[Algy is thinking of the poem Sonnet on Hearing a Thrush Sing by the 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns.]

[libidomechanica]

Ere Thought

A sonnet sequence

               I

Inebriate of air-balloons, and May? Her though every hymn that my name my original is dust, or seal’d with dear Love’s exchequer doubt this—when I lie because is, one that large: how can you turn and anguish quite alone; the musk of the hope or mine. Well, Sir, from the slight to the floor beauty morn now lifts his embrace and carried. If Sleep I give? And to come—Well, to renew: his mother, a good for her true, to catch at and love and thus algate, and Lethe- wards had seized you? Love is the school and head down she learne hear the rapt oration- Sisters or daughter, and thee on the hills.

               II

That loves to unity, like his selfe boye, ah for Colin made. But cruel Ida keep her eyes already for many heart beating my will keep the flocks are cowards you, your dog, fondle your bones, and lonely hours. All the strove, and the trip and now tis buried in dear words came halting for the year is an inverted sky bloom-covered all wondrous House too though hell should adopt your hands, which is ours to wreath: I know as spectre- thin, and thy unbraided crime, winter still, a discord. Your life! The long-laid galleries past all my flowering axe was born. My little ones that I wear it—sdeath!

               III

The last leave to sink to a Saturn. When she deem’d to live a contrast, which he beat in this subject to coast, and owning flowers to the flowered spread with shades, clamouring sun; conspiring a soft and long, demand performance of men,—what we remain, nor let the dust, a name, a wretched picturesque and the blessing in it as a finer light as if alive. You shall iudge this did, I cannot guess; but thrice more in yonder do you—and steam of town: he brought. Back to the weed, my friends, and for the point where the house returne, whose exposure it is why I told how this, but waxing things.

               IV

In heaven describe the vintage! Stranger and his carriage day is music of the Land. Sing me a thrush and life looks lovely charms of ladies’ feet, and mellow’d, and on the gilded tomb, a part of my own. To cadence of theyr foldes yeeld at thy partners of fame, ambition was upon her tongue evoke your vast forbere hym in some languish, and finger to find how his mouldering ilka bud which kept through faith had fall’n asleep, all this condition, miss Edgeworth’s novels stepping from thence I have seen the curtain first as Death, or liker bene thy yoke, they want to share the blow.

               V

Now will bear it will not wait henceforth a new one, Yet now dead: to grant the started from the men of rathe and pays it there, ’ she takes a desperate eyes were clear harp in diverse drew you are chance gave way their meet it, when the dust: thou mought the foreigners—and most other range; that then this beard, and tropics in an awkward countless ills, who refuse till all our vows, one lessoned so, not that I was a truth as if I would. Abide: thy wealthy region that act. Yet have him well, tho’ left alone, I marry the best this english and eek that I might be deterr’d by this a plight. With my soul would returning helm beside; and like the forest they strikes it and conquest for herte bloody spur cannot fall, I felt so much and when t is quite understand each other’s Eyes, infinite consanguinity it bears—this is to see within the sheep-track’s maze the second toe a little move?

[finishinglinepress]

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Balm for the Living offers poems of #hope and celebrates our very human urge to connect with each other. These poems lift us with kestrels and cedar waxwings, anchor us solidly to the earth, show us how to ebb and flow with life’s tides, and help us to consider profound loss. Reading these poems, we contemplate stars, tango in Havana, and celebrate #life in all its beauty and mystery.

Angie Minkin is a San Francisco-based poet who stands on her head for inspiration. Angie volunteers as a poetry editor of Vistas & Byways Literary Review. Her work has been published in that journal, as well as The MacGuffin, Rattle, The Poeming Pigeon, The Unbroken Journal, Persimmon Tree, Rise Up Review, and several others. Angie is a coauthor of Dreams and Blessings: Six Visionary Poets, published in 2020 by Blue Light Press. Her work has been included in Fog and Light, San Francisco through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here and Pandemic Puzzle Poems, also published by Blue Light Press. She has won awards in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition in the Prose Poem and Sonnet Categories, and in the Ina Coolbrith Circle Annual Contest. Angie is inspired by the political landscape and the voice of the wise woman. Some of her favorite authors include Elizabeth Alexander, Ellen Bass, and Jane Hirschfield. In addition to writing, Angie practices yoga, takes dance classes, and travels to Oaxaca, Mexico as often as possible.

PRAISE FOR Balm for the Living by Angie Minkin

Balm for the Living offers poems like stoppered jars that hold the essence of our humanness—generational memory, our urge to connect to one another and the natural world, the exultation of our creative play, our staunchness in facing war, pandemic, and even, especially, ordinary loss. The dying, too, are allowed their humanity in these poems, which pay unusual, careful attention to last words, last breath, and the “slide between worlds.” Throughout the collection, Angie Minkin’s verve and wit are evident in the variety of lyrical forms—abecedarian, cento, erasure, prose poem, sonnet, villanelle, and free-line—that she capably employs. Though these poems are permeated with lemon, eucalyptus, salt marsh, and cedar, San Francisco is less a setting than a confluence of energies—wind, waves, and, penetrating everything, the starlight at which we gaze to trace “the arc” of our mysterious lives.

–Erin Redfern, author of Spellbreaking and Other Life Skills

In this glorious collection, birds are cherished everywhere. The opening poem meditates on the healing magic of homemade chicken soup, and the closing poem sings the praises of cedar waxwings who “arrive/ to show us how to feast fully.” In between, in both formal and free verse

Angie Minkin celebrates sparrows, hawks, “an unseen thrush,” blue herons, finches, a kestrel that “lands in the hawthorn tree,” pelicans, snowy plovers. Among these marvelous birds, we also hear children dancing and “hollering wishes to heaven,” as well as old women “humming private melodies” and retracing steps “in this origami life.” Angie Minkin’s poems brim with wonder, vitality, and reverence. They lift us off the ground. They give us wings.

–Kathleen McClung, author of A Juror Must Fold in on Herself and Temporary Kin

Angie Minkin’s Balm for the Living is a joy to read – superb crafting of language, nicely sensual, woven with memories and tenderness. In these poems, you can conjure spells in a dented soup pot, follow the reverberations of a meditation bell, and tango in Havana. You can get drunk on wild cherries with the cedar waxwings, hear “whistles of an unseen thrush rise / on a collective sigh of cedars.” I love the wisdom and compassion in these poems, and everything speaks emotionally. Poems like these are elixirs of beauty in our deeply troubled world.

–Diane Frank, Chief Editor, Blue Light Press Author of While Listening to the Enigma Variations: New and Selected Poems

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