VERSE NURSE

Chewing my mental cud, I ruminate
On thoughts arising in the pre-dawn haze,
Searching for something tasty to elate
My torpid Muse and set my mind ablaze—

Until from out the dim Mysterium
A notion stirs and words begin to form
Into the sentences that then become
A stately shape within those thoughts that swarm.

Thus is it that a sonnet may arise
Almost spontaneously, with seeming ease
To the reader’s and the writer’s fond surprise
Because this magic form both binds and frees.

     Though sonnets make their strict formal demands,
     They feed in ways nobody understands.

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