Sonnet | pictured words

September 4, 2022

WHAT THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE CAN’T SEE

Exposure to the vastness of our world
reveals the limitations of my brain.
As gleaming glows of galaxies unfurled
have come to light, I cannot even feign

to grasp a tiny bit of what exists,
or visualize what else may be out there.
For as the search continues to persist,
we’ll surely find more great unknowns elsewhere.

Here’s me, my feet fixed firmly to the ground;
my tiny world spills full with those I love.
My eyes and heart lift up to God, spellbound
at what He made that I can scarce dream of.

This God who spoke unending realms to be,
sees fit to whisper words of love to me.

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place: What is mankind that you are mindful of them? Human beings that you care for them?”
~ Psalm 8:3-4

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July 17, 2022

COME HOME (Sonnet to Immigrants and Refugees)

Photo by Elu012bna Aru0101ja on Pexels.com

So, at what point does one decide to flee
the land where fruit and spice speak Grandma’s tongue?
Where generations of their family 
breathe music, art, and song as through shared lung?

This land (their land) where memories are made:
The land that births their children’s love of life,
where laughter laughs, and prayers-in-sync are prayed,
with rooted norms for husband and for wife.

At what point does their home feel foreign-born,
so much so that they have no choice but leave?
How long ‘til all their colors wilt war-torn?
How long until their soul does naught but grieve?

At what point can one let go of what was,
to feel at home in land of unlike flaws?

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

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September 5, 2021

Still (sonnet)

If time stood still, would I continue on?
Would forward movement cease then to exist?
Could sun and moon be viewed from dusk to dawn,
And deadlines not be met, yet not be missed?

Would falling stars suspend themselves in space,
Like frozen fireworks across night’s sky,
As lovers fused beneath in warm embrace
Would never need to say the word goodbye?

Would guarantees be suddenly fulfilled, 
Or would our contracts be for naught, and nixed?
Would all that’s overflowing go un-spilled?
Might what was once detaching be affixed?

If all that was foreshadowed was foregone
As time stood still, would we continue on?

© Marie Elena Good, 2021

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August 1, 2021

THE HEART OF AN OLYMPIAN

Dreams held within resist all hindrances,
As though an iron breastplate shelters it.
Equating fear and doubt as hidden sins,
It will not recognize them, nor admit

Susceptibility may lie inside.
It soundly strikes a metronome-like beat
That pulses toward the goal that it has eyed,
Where grueling pain and utter joy may meet.

But when a running water hose crimps tight,
The urgent fix outweighs the aim at hand.
The crimp must be relaxed … And this despite
Whatever lofty plan was in demand.

Olympic hearts are human, in the end.
They’ve earned soft hands to hold them as they mend.

June 21, 2020

YESTERDAYS (Father’s Day 2020 Sonnet for my Dad)

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Just one more chance to hear your drum set swing,
And feel the pride well up inside my core.
And I believe I’d give most anything
To watch as you conduct a band once more.

To hear you call Mom Sweet Pea one more time,
And see the love for her in aging eyes
That cleaved to days of youth, well past their prime,
Embracing the enchantment love implies.

From time to time, I feel as though you’re near.
I sometimes hear your words play through my mind.
Oh how I’d love to linger for a year
While you are here, and death is left behind.

Though we may try to hold what fades away,
Our yesterdays were never meant to stay.

April 30, 2020

FROM HIM, THROUGH HIM, TO HIM (Sonnet to my God)

Photo by Daniel Reche, courtesy of Pixabay

Oh, stillness deep within me, never wane
when chaos saturates the world without.
I know the very God who sees and reigns –
whose still, small voice speaks peace, and quiets doubt.

He gave mankind a gnawing in our soul
that won’t be satisfied without His will.
And only He can quench that thirsty hole;
and only through His food, we get our fill.

At times, my praise rings sonorous and strong,
and springs from nourished soul that feeds on Him.
At times my praise, just weak and weary song,
seeps sluggishly from apathy within.

Oh, Father, fill me up when I am drained,
and may my praise be endless; unrestrained.

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February 18, 2019

ALL IN THE SAME BOAT (Or, “Idyllic,” a Sonnet for Political Sanity)

Photo by Keith R. Good

When I consider all, from left to right,
I find myself smack dab in center’s eye.
But I am now okay with that, despite
The pressures of a partisan outcry.

Those right of me say I should think as they,
And fault me for the way I lean more left.
While to my left are those who stand dismayed
That I am not (in their minds) more “progressed.”

Yet are we not one vessel, stern to bow?
We need to row as one, or we will sink!
And so let’s work together to learn how
Our center, left, and right can interlink.

Let’s turn off the contemptuous hate speech,
And focus on the positives of each.

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October 24, 2018

A Creator’s Palette (Sonnet to The Artist)

Reflections of autumn’s trees on Rose Lake in Ohio’s Hocking Hills region. Photo credit: Keith R. Good

Describing “yellow” leaves in fall, for me,
Does not at all depict their cheerful gleam
As sunlight spills as liquid through the trees,
And they themselves could light the day, it seems.

So also “orange” can’t describe the bliss
That autumn’s gorgeous vista just compels.
And though I can’t rename it, I know this:
Fall’s celebrated color casts its spells.

My favored autumn shades though are the reds:
From rosy blush to crimson, fire-and-iced.
They fairly flaunt and flame as they turn heads.
There’s no way common “red” would have sufficed.

How can we label paints and pens of God
That leave us reverential, praise-filled, awed ?

FOR POETIC BLOOMINGS AUTUMNAL POEM-A-DAY CHAPBOOK CHALLENGE, 2018, DAY 11: CRIMSON

August 1, 2018

HOLY BOOK (Sonnet to the Word of God)

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A book of books; a letter to mankind
God-breathed to men of many walks of life –
And yet this faultless work is undermined.
Some say its very Author causes strife.

Translated into fourteen hundred tongues,
No other book approaches such renown
As this, which is as breath to failing lungs.
Throughout, God’s living hallowed voice resounds.

Amazing in enduring relevance
Astonishing consistency of thought
Unparalleled in unbound eminence –
Deny its holiness? No, I cannot.

Though there are those who disregard His word,
My God will not be silenced, nor unheard.

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December 20, 2017

OF HUMBLE MEANS (Sonnet to the Newborn King)

Public domain photo

Expectant couple travels far and fierce.|
She, full with child, atop a gentle ass.
He, worried as her sighs begin to pierce,
And finding there’s no room in inns they pass.

He, with no proper room to birth her child,
Secures a proffered stable to take rest.
The Babe comes quickly, there amidst the wild.
He frees her Son, and lays Him at her breast.

The Newborn listens to the bleating sheep.
The feeding trough He lies in smells of hay.
His weary mother tries to get some sleep,
Through rolling sounds of cry and bleat and bray.

Great throngs of angels revel in this day –
In lowly trough, there lies The Truth. The Way.

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