LXIV-LXIX

LXIV.

The challenge for my soul is that I’m bored
and not because I haven’t much to do.
It’s quite demanding, working for the Lord
while raising children (three) and canines (two).

Adventures can be few and far between
when ev’ry waking moment of your day
consists of sermons written, people seen,
then cooking, cleaning, chaos kept at bay.

A walk, a book, a newfound skill to try
provides a breath of air in stifled times.
A Sagittarius whose life is dry
can struggle in these isolating climes.

This season of exhaustion will not last.
The world revolves; soon challenges are passed.


LXV.

November has a beauty all her own
with grey-white skies and golden brownish fields.
The wind develops teeth and starts to moan,
my nose and knuckles begging to be healed.

The trees have shed their leaves from branches bare.
The shocks of or’nge are hunters in their stands.
Some wisps of white have smattered here and there,
just hints of what will cover thick our lands.

A frosty breath invigorates the heart,
the briefest steeling ‘fore the winter plunge.
With Advent preparations soon to start,
the quiet cold can fretfulness expunge.

I close my eyes and let it bite my skin,
then pull it through my nostrils deep within.


LXVI.

Is fantasy no more but an escape,
a flight from life when all’s too much to bear?
I see how such a notion could take shape
yet overall I find it quite unfair.

It’s true that when pandemic came to stay
I read the Dresden Files, some twenty books,
along with other fantasy mainstays
like D&D, to which I now am hooked.

In all of this I felt not immature
but sought a joie de vivre in the angst.
A deeper truth is found here, I am sure;
a prison break to join more faithful ranks.

True fantasy does not escape the world
but dives into reality unfurled.


LXVII.

I lived a year in Boston in oh-four
when I had hit a quarter century.
My Father passed away the year before
so Mom came up for Christmastide with me.

We worshipped with the monks of old St John’s,
their sanctuary decked with or’nge and clove.
We hit the cinema to see what’s on,
then down to Plymouth Colony we drove.

The mists were dancing, curling down the street;
the reënactors chopping, burning wood.
The sights and scents in memory accrete
associations beautiful and good.

So much of Boston I have now forgot
yet Christmas with my Mother I shall not.


LXVIII.

I’m feeling in my forties more alive
by going back to things I used to love.
I listen to more music on my drive;
I take the time to send some prayer above.

I do a little Spanish, German, Greek.
I try to watch some hist’ry on TV.
For books I aim to finish one a week.
Of course, there’s always coffee, beer, and tea.

I exercise a little twice a day;
my progress may be slow but it is there.
Against the dishes, yes I do inveigh
but headphones help me to avoid despair.

A lot of things are difficult in life
yet stubborn habits help to still the strife.


LXIX.

I kind of maybe sort of want to write.
I know I pen more sermons than most priests.
But could I plot a novel, keep it tight,
maintain the effort as the drafts increase?

My wife is working on a new degree
to plan a dissertation coming soon.
I too would seek some creativity
(though as for academia, I’m through).

These sonnets that I’m scribbling I intend
as avenues artistic for the soul,
releasing all these yearnings as they wend
through vivid dreams to some more concrete goal.

I don’t know that I have a book within
but not to try would taste too much like sin.