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From two poems written years ago while I was flailing about in college. The first is nearly in its exact form, with italics indicating when I changed words or phrases into better grammatical or rhythmic choices. The latter is from a patch of patchy free verse I scribbled on a whiteboard in my old childhood home, and thus had to be heavily reworked to become a sonnet. Many of the lines were able to remain exactly the same (pentameter is easy to fall into by accident, it seems), but where I had to adjust syllable count, I kept as many appropriate nouns and adjectives as possible.

I had long longed for the community I remembered from adolescence. Time, I blamed, had robbed me of it, but I still believed that it might be just around some invisible corner. Wordsworth would be proud.

~~~

The night, so cold and solemn in its gloom

hath trodden on my heart without relent,

displaying, in its images of doom,

the sad, unhappy state t’wich I’ve been sent.

While yonder beam the heavens—e’en the sky,

and send their light upon the young and old.

The fog about my soul in night doth cry:

“mine eyes shall never see the dawn unfold.”

And yet, with glory hath the Light been sent

to ev’ry creature here both high and low.

That Light, to death and misery hath went,

and shall unto my trenches also go.

Just as the somber night turns into day,

so shall my heart be lit, somehow, someway.

~~~

Say, when will I return unto my home?

Where all was good and men were all my kin?

I walked on roads of peace, and proudly roamed

the grandeur that I thought it must have been.

I loved, and I was loved, now all is black.

So dark, and little light ahead to see;

and none to promise what I knew way back.

What is this path ahead—ahead of me?

And yet, the only promise that I know

provides a glimpse—a hint—of one more day

with those I love. To there I fondly go.

I walk whatever path the Lord doth say.

To that good, kindly future, or away,

I walk whatever path the Lord doth say.