Day 646 of the daily poems. We were cruising along on the theme of Music, when Janet became the focus, and then ancient Methuselah intruded. We can return to Janet today with a poem that, although of scant poetic merit, at least gives Janet a namecheck. Our poet is (was) a lovelorn young man by the name of Pat. He sounds to have been a proper wet week, doesn’t he – and if he’s still around, then he must be as old as Methuselah too …
Sonnet for Janet
Often I think, as I sit here alone
deep in the squalid city, in the shade,
watching the sunny sidewalk, hard and bright,
watching the children playing on the stone,
“I am a man, with feelings and with sight
why was I not a blade of grass when made?
grass in the hills, grass by the breezes blown?”
God in his mercy formed me as I am,
and made me weak, that I must fall in love.
Her love was warm when all the world was sham
until as shallow did she, also, prove
for now I know that every love must pass.
Oh why, my Lord, oh why am I not grass?
Pat
published in The Student, Edinburgh 1956