The man returns to his home of the moment, wherever there is candlelight, peace, and his quill. It always must be candlelight; the truth of day is far too scorching to allow the words to come uninhibited from him. The writer requires truth, always truth, in order to create his world of fiction.

The ultimate goal is a play, but first he needs a setting, decent characters, and a boatload of conflict. He realizes that this could take years. Unwilling to allow his wit to wither under the endless scribbling of notes, he commits his brain to the careful exercise of poetry. In sonnets, there is discipline, and Everett knows that this may eventually lead him to his inspiration. His prayer is never spoken, always present.

Erato. Thalia. Calliope. Rain your splendor down on me. Make me your humble instrument.

Most nights, only the mockery of silence finds him. The words lay mute in an ocean of mediocrity, and he is, as usual, an utter failure. What good will he ever be to the world if he does not write? This man knows he has little else to offer. Nothing to win the heart of a woman. Nothing to burn his name into the consciousness of a nation. Nothing to make him, by any small measure, special.

Once in a while, a leak springs in the dam that holds all the words away from the page, and they spill out in artful little spurts. Once on the page they marry, dance to life, and take form, forging bright futures in that weathered leather journal he fondly calls his sketchbook. Each little creation brings him closer to his dreams, and until they are born, he searches for them: in the kiss of a fair maiden, the sound of the night air, the eyes of an old woman. These are the sonnets Everett might one day share, should he find someone patient enough to listen (or wealthy enough to publish!)

Let the poetry begin...

ii


How dulcet are your charms, O English Rose,
The music of your petals finds men cured
Of spiteful things that wicked ears have heard:
Of beauty's death, of unambitious woes.

E'en plucked, her fragrance sings to him in prose,
Caught on the line; captured, willing, lured.
Enchanting as the nightingale, sweet bird,
Her classic song and ancient, sweet repose.

A twilit grove upon the witching hour,
Bears a finer bloom beneath her bower.

Wildflowers untamable and frail
Gasping toward Diana, sipping dew.
Beside the Rose, they make her virtues few.
Her glamour stayed, her beauty thin and pale.


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iv

What may I write for thee, O sweetest friend?
I see better than these lame eyes display;
A better weather waits beyond this day.
Ere summer comes, I think the rain shall end.

Thy shiv'ring soul may think to sway and bend,
Thy eyes show its fabric: the edges fray.
A hem in tatters, colors fade to grey,
Nothing I can say may help thee to mend.

Something thou knowest not, but I can see,
Could be the very thing to comfort thee.

A source of weakness pounding in thy breast,
It pains thee yet, traitorous heart of thine.
Though it doth grieve in every aching line
The volume of thy love shall bring thee rest.


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vi

Gentle beech, fairest in the starlit stand,
Paint thy portraits with a firefly's brush.
Witchcraft winking out in a benign rush
Captures the subject with fleet-footed hand.

Simplicity and elegance thy brand,
Virescent She, thy kindness vast and lush
Sings louder, sweeter than the vile thrush.
The measure of thy virtue worth demand.

What sordid sort of sacreligious squire
Would lamely seek to claim thee with desire?

Nay, it is the foul folly of the axe,
To cut where it should not against thy stem.
Thy grace refuses to submit to them!
Thou art an artful verse, for nothing lacks.


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These words were not written with the confident elegant hand of the seven that preceded, but rather, this page was marked with spare ink. The lines were passionate and hesitant, all at once. It was clear they were not drafted separately.

viii

I would have given you the summer rain,
Though I was never clever, strong or brave.
For your requital, I would have been slave
Replace my kind and true regard with pain.

To wail against you here may be in vain,
I howl, I weep, I rage and rant and rave.
You steal from me the comfort that I crave.
I fear this grief will fail to ever wane.

My words against me you have thought to wield
I am not too proud to beg you, yield.

Young love's betrayal makes a tidal swell,
I drown in waves, encumbered by the whys,
For my devotion, I am paid in lies.
Tis honesty condemns me to this Hell.


E

x


The kestrel with her sharpened talon spikes,
O huntress fair, fearsome little thing.
She screeches battle! Takes to artful wing;
The violence of her life brings her to strike!

A speckled mouse, her quarry in the field,
He hath not a prayer against her preying.
Mousey flesh is soon to be for flaying,
The warrior bird does not know how to yield.

But lo, in sweet distraction lies his chance,
The graceful creature must consent to dance!

Though glorious in small display of might,
Upon the wind, the lady wants to play!
Yon mousey lives to scurry one more day,
For she is taken happily with flight.



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xii


I cannot write, for I have naught to say.
These lines lie meaningless, so wan and poor.
The letters align but they cannot do more.
Little could rouse them to action today.

Rally the troops, send them into the fray,
Hope against hope that here, within this war
Prevail they shall. Then, of spoils they score
A score of spoils, words of wide array.

Align the findings, fix them in their places.
The veils all lift, and I can spy their faces.

An infantry reborn in inky lines,
Ideas may follow them where they traverse
Within their steps, I find the missing verse.
I am to write, e?en when my pen declines.


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xiv


At the first glance, I saw a beauty frail,
One tenuous, ephemeral, then gone.
Though fairness lives within each line as drawn,
I?d not have thought that I ought lift the veil.

Now I, willing captive of each detail--
How damask light to cheek heralds the dawn--
Am suddenly, so willing to play pawn!
The protests of my past seem slight and pale.

This traveler gets lost in flaxen plains.
Kind smiles bolster hope and she remains.

My words, inadequate cannot convey
That which, in deft lines, her sweet hands might capture.
Each line, a poem; her canvas home to rapture.
I want to know her more than I can say.

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