the world a letter

On Saturday I'm taking another of these one-shot master classes, this time with Marilyn Hacker on sonnets. This will almost definitely be my last one--they are pricey, and I feel a little like Jonah did when we took him back to his nursery school a few months ago for a little reunion--"Is this okay?" But it's in New Brunswick, so the a) relative low cost to my energy and the b) relative uncommonness of such an event make it seem a no-brainer. So, I'm going.

At least, it's gotten me to write a few sonnets. Here's what I'm taking:



I Didn’t Sonnet


I didn’t know I’d settled into these
days till they had past, and all I’d left
of them was me. I took them as my craft,
they took me through more than they were. Now, please
don’t misunderstand: If my days were seas,
though what they washed up into form had heft,
such salvage is not they; and if days sift
from wash and tide to a fine grain, they seize

back again what they were, gave, in season.
The days I settled to as me were my
self-tidings: assurance that I was; thus I
rode the history of one thought for years
and over years, until it broke: it rears
back, carries another, a new man run.