Category Archives: Sonnets

Remembrances Expanded

A single one of us has passed away
Affecting every thread on Making Light.
We stagger at the impact. All we say
Is dimmer in his absence. He shone bright.
Imagine, if you can, a million lost
Or more: the good and better, bad and worse.
Each death its own immeasurable cost
Each grief deserving vivid, timeless verse.
We lost a friend. It’s cost us all so much
In future joy and present pain alike.
That price is paid by all that death can touch
They all were missed the way that we miss Mike.
The mind cannot encompass so much grief:
They lost a forest, we mourn a single leaf.

Originally posted on Making Light, in honor of Remembrance Sunday and John M Ford.

Against Entropy, the monkey version

I’m not Mike Ford, nor was I meant to be;
But an attendant lord, who will just do
To swell a thread, or start a meme or three,
Obtuse and pompous, yes, and foolish too.
Yet still I write my high sentitious verse,
Between the ether and the mermaid beach.
My scansion’s poor, my structure’s even worse,
And artistry is far beyond my reach.
I’m not alone: beside me Ledgister
Sits pecking at his keys with hairy paws.
We’re monkeys, see? Does Shakespeare register
Or can we go for Ford instead? No pause…
Fragano, Raven, Dan and I all writ
And hoped our numbers reached the infinite.

Originally posted on Making Light, in memory of John M Ford.

Gently with the newbies

Don’t call this fledgling to a strict account.
He has not glided in the wider world,
Nor even left his nest, and no amount
Of flapping of his wings, so new-unfurled,
Can really substitute for honest flight.
He doesn’t understand the atmosphere,
The updrafts and the currents, but he might
Become a thinker and a writer here.
He has a lot to learn of content, yes,
But also that opponents may respect
Each other, disagreeing none the less,
(A thought on which some others could reflect.)
Let’s tolerate his rudeness for the nonce:
Remember that we all were callow once.

Originally posted on Making Light, in reaction to an incipient dogpile.

Evolution for Theists

This world of wonders seems so very odd
And populated by things odder still,
That it feels easier to cling to God
As watchmaker as well as source of will.
Nor was creation made to calm your fears:
The heavens tell his glory with a light
Far older than the bare six thousand years
That Ussher counts. Yet still they shine as bright.
The fossils set in stone don’t teach of Eve,
But He created them. They are his work.
In what, precisely, do you then believe?
That He has lied to us? I think you shirk.
God gave (evolved) you brains to cross this rift:
You, wasting them, repudiate His gift.

Originally posted on Making Light, apropos of the “Darwin Fish”