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3.

In between remedies

for breath and belly,

the physician wrote of a cure

for wounds that will not heal.

Do not cut or cauterize,

he warned, but take the sword

that caused the hurt

from your enemy's house

or hand, and bandage it.

In this time of plague,

I will bind the wounds

of my oppressor,

kiss his hands,

and be saved.

4. The Firstborn: a lullaby

In the evening, in the night time,

baby count the stars with me.

Count the birds and count the fishes,

count the ripples on the sea.

The vault of heaven stretches over

quiet banks and sandy dunes

and I will keep you from a darkness

nothing crosses but the moon.

You will sleep and I will hold you

while a shadow skates the sky

and you will see after it passes

that in this time of plague,

there is blood

on the mouth of the moon.

samira: The second sonnet reminds me of the shadow in A Wrinkle in Time. Just a reaction. But it also does not seem to fit with the progression of sonnets, or at least to deviate a bit from the others. I don't know whether that is a good or a bad thing, and so I offer it as an observation. I also found it a bit less accessible, somehow. I guess the shift from nurturing to the harshness of the blood on the moon did not quite make sense to me, partly because I could not tell whether the narrative voice was regretful and sad that the child would realize later, or determined to protect the child until it was safe for him/er to see, or how to read the emotion there. heather: Hmmm, the context for this sonnet was supposed to come across in the title, but I don't think it is -- basically, a mother sings a lullaby to her first baby on the night of the 7th plague. The baby, of course, dies. I was trying to imply that the mother often sings to her child about how there is nothing to be afraid of during the night. The song starts to change because this night is different, and eventually breaks off. It might be the wrong idea to make into a sonnet. I want to use the rhyme, but there might not be enough room in 14 lines for the tone to gradually change as much as I want it to change. samira: Oh boy, do I feel dumb. I missed which plague it was and all of that--even though there is no real excuse for that. Don't tell the Div schools. They will kick me back out! But that said, I did miss it--I think more time for development might help, but I also like the idea and am wondering if there might be a less subtle way to do it. jlewis: So, I feel sort of funny about correcting your Bible Fu, Heather, but, uh, the 7th plague is hail. :) I read this, by the way, as being about plagues 9 and 10: three days of darkness leading into the firstborn-slaying. The poem seems to sort of sit at the transition point between two plagues, which I like a lot. (Was that a deliberate move, by the way?) heather: Gah, thank you, yes. I wasn't thinking. Um, currently, there really isn't an order to the sonnets. I just numbered them as I wrote them. Eventually when I'm really sick of writing about plague, I'm going to sit down and figure out the order in which they work best. As far as your other question -- semi-conscious, I guess. The only part of the poem I was really set on was the last three lines. And I couldn't come up with a begining that went with them. This was one idea. alecia: Heather, I really like these, both in concept and in execution. The words fit especially nicely in the lullaby part of sonnet #4. I'm wondering, though, if both poems could be richer and clearer with some expansion. For example, more evocative words like "cut" and "cauterize" would strengthen the impact of sonnet #3, and clarification of exactly what's at stake might draw the reader further into sonnet #4. How important is the sonnet form to you? In some places, you're already stretching the form more than a bit; perhaps because the 14-line-limit is hemming you in? I'd suggest re-writing without the form in mind and seeing how much more you create... then eliding and paring. Think Mary O'Malley and "Miss Panacea Regrets." eppy: There's an excerpt of a story in this month's Harpers called "The Apocolypse Exhibition" that strongly reminded me of this. Add comment