1981
Sonnet IV
February 1981


“Sonnet IV,” New Era, Jan.–Feb. 1981, 64

Sonnet IV

When sunlight probes my eyelids after dawn,

It is so hard to open them to see

This empty day and know that I will be

In empty rooms and find your shadows gone

With yesterday still close. A bitter blow

That memories now are but a thing of dust.

Tears sting my eyes with pain of broken trust,

For you are gone where I shall never go.

Sometimes a whisper comes to me to tell

My spirit of an angel loved by God,

A son of morning, light to worlds that fell,

And tore hearts with him, sound of one-third’s laud.

So comes again a thought I cannot shake—

How big must be a heart that will not break?