Sonnet I.

And why the silence, and why your wintry night,
Poor heart? Will you not give me a single rose?
Did I neglect your hearths and faded torchlights?
Your lone fields lay smothered in unyielding snows
Where walks no moonlight, and your constellations
Detach and blow as scintillating blizzards
Down darkness haunted by dim adumbrations
Of unspeakable horror. I feel withered.
Poems I try to kindle with sticks and flint
Go out like smokeless sparks in bitter wasteland.
Of sunrise my voiceless skylarks find no hint:
Why sing when I can hide my face in my hands?
All thoughts and dreams desert me, as though not mine,
Flying from me as doves towards Palestine.

November 9, 2023