Waverly Songs II: Time, Timing, Change
Poetry by Robert Sonkowsky
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A sample poem from "Waverly Songs II: Time, Timing, Change -- More Poetry by Robert Sonkowsky":
Dismanteling Our Christmas Tree kenosisDown comes the big angel Gabriel
from the very top blowing his horn
Christ is born. Then a veritable crop
of lacey stars and snowflakes, glass balls of silver and gold,
glass reindeer, German, delicate, old – don’t drop them for heaven sakes –
little angels, Santas, of felt and of wood, items like circus seals with balls on noses –
no ancestor who bequeathed them would or could explain their relevance, one supposes,
to Christmas. Dismantle the mantle: Wisemen, Kings, baby Jesus; grandkids’ stockings, now empty.
Lastly, take apart the tree, after boxing all these things,
and fold its plastic limbs into a coffin-shaped container as if embalmed until next year: it’s a no-brainer
that I too have lost my topmost decoration as well as, below that, much of my ornamentation
at age eighty-one; my limbs of flesh, not plastic, await inhumation one day, or cremation, but my dismantling, while not embalmed,
will be by my faith becalmed, and become a new creation,
beyond political liberation, emptied of myself, emptied of things.
© by Robert Sonkowsky.
Used with the author’s permission.
Robert Sonkowsky is a poet, freelance actor, and classics & theater professor emeritus. He has written and performed poetry since the second grade, when his creative teacher, Miss Malarkey, had her pupils use words from the spelling lists in poems and stories and read them aloud to the class. Robert is the author of two books of poetry, has published individual poems in online and print publications, and regularly recites new poems before the North Oaks, Minnesota Poets and Writers group.
Post New Comment:twinkscat: Great idea for a poem! Thanks for sharing.
Posted 01/14/2013 12:53 PM
peninsulapoet:
I like how the poem turns at the end to be a comment on mortality. Plus, the poem has a charming music.
Posted 01/14/2013 09:32 AM
Larry Schug:
This poem is a great example of how huge the "little" moments really are and if one is thoughtful, can draw life lessons from them. We should all know there are really no "little" moments in life. Thanks, Robert. Good work.
Posted 01/14/2013 08:12 AM
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About the Book
As I have grown older, I have not necessarily grown wiser, at least not in brainpower, but I think my heart has grown more willing to communicate its thoughts to other hearts. In my first volume of “Waverly Songs” I explained that the word “Waverly” not only connotes the wonderful natural surroundings of Waverly Gardens, where I live with my wife, but also means “wavering/quaking” like the Quaking Aspen leaves on the cover and like me myself: my hands shake because of my mild “familial tremor,” and my general attitude and approach to life and to God shakes and quakes in ways that the poems in this second volume will develop. Its subtitle “Time, Timing, Change” is intended to indicate, oxymoronically enough, a broad focus that includes age and aging but goes far beyond that into a whole universe both mundane and spiritual: the intervals and rhythms of Time and his polar servants love and death, birth and re-birth, memory of the past and faith in the future. My poems are in various forms – free verse, the sonnet, the villanelle etc.; I sometimes break the rules of form for our English adaptation of the Japanese Haiku and Tanka, in the orthodox version of which, rhyme is expressly forbidden, whereas I rhyme.
About the Author
Robert Sonkowsky is a poet, free-lance actor, and Classics & Theater Professor Emeritus. He has written and performed poetry since the second grade, where his creative teacher, Miss Malarkey, had her pupils use words from the spelling lists in poems and stories and read them aloud to the class. He has published two previous books of poetry: UNSOUND SCIENCE ISBN 978-1-4500-0752-8 and WAVERLY SONGS ISBN 978-1-4697-9169-2, with individual poems in some on-line and print publications, such as “Poets Against the War” and “Trellis Magazine.” He regularly recites new poems before the North Oaks, Minnesota, Poets and Writers group. For details see Wikipedia, his agent www.wehmann.com, his U. of Minnesota resume cnes.cla.umn.edu, or just Google him; for samples, both print and audio see http://www.bolchazy.com/prod.php?cat=latin&id=00007 and http://ipodius.bolchazy.com/agora/UnsoundScience.html wehmann.com > men 65+ bob sonkowsky cnes.cla.umn.edu